Cervantes / Gustav Doré - The History of Don Quixote. The Text edited by J.W. Clark and a Biographical Notice of Cervantes - 1870

The History of Don Quixote. The Text edited by J.W. Clark and a Biographical Notice of Cervantes by T. Teignmouth Shore. Illustrated By Gustave Doré.

London Cassell Petter and Galpin c.-1870, 1864. Large 4to. (30 x 23 cm). pp.xxviii+737.

Title-page printed in red and black. Complete as called for with 118 full-page wood-engraved plates including frontispiece and numerous vignettes in the letterpress after Gustave Doré. A rare copy in a preserving binding with marbled boards and preserving black tape spine. "Don Quixote was a text calculated to test even Doré. He was matching himself against Coypel and Tony Johannot among French artists, not to mention the Spanish illustrators of the great Ibarra edition published in Madrid in 1780. He met the challenge superbly...Doré visited Spain early in 1862 with his friend Baron Davillier. He made many drawings which eventually appeared in Davillier's L'Espagne of 1874. He also had Don Quixote on his mind. Jerrold relates that at first he intended only forty designs, but Cervantes' book captured his imagination, and he arranged with Hatchette for a major work in two folio volumes. By labouring night and day he and his engraver, Pisan, finished its illustrations within a year...Don Quixote and Sancho Panza reached their definitive rendering in Doré's designs. The pair appears in the great majority of his illustrations, and they are always in keeping. Doré does not overlook the Don's comic side, and he emphasizes Sancho's, but he always shows respect for the one and affection for the other. In fact, Don Quixote is a cheerful book, the last such among his works except for La Fontaines Fables. If the Inferno is the grandest of Doré's achievements, Don Quixote is the most human" (Ray). Cassell's had an annoying habit of not dating many of their publications. The firm was founded in 1848 by John Cassell (1817-1865) who went bankrupt in 1855 and the company was taken over by Thomas Dixon Galpin and George William Petter, trading thereafter as Cassell, Petter & Galpin (as here). From 1878 in partnership with Robert Turner it traded as Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Company. Petter resigned in 1883 and from 1888 the company was known as Cassell & Co. (Ray, 248).