TOP ROW

01 Arthur Boyd Houghton's representation of the Don, from the Warne edition reprinted in 1926 11 x16 cms.

02 The Madrid edition (1797-8) printed by Gabriel de Sancha

03 Coypels' illustrations to the Chereau edition 1723-4, Paris. They were originally used for the Gobelin tapestries made from 1716.

04 Titlepage of the first illustrated edition Brussels, 1662

BOTTOM ROW

01 Arthur Boyd Houghton again.

02 Phillips' translation of Don Quixote, London 1687

 

QUIXOTE IN THE STYLE OF GEORGE CRUIKSHANK

ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER 1930

ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM STRANG 1903

ILLUSTRATED BY G.Staal, 1898

ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE HIM, 1898

ILLUSTRATED BY EDY LEGRAND

 

SUMMARY OF THE NARRATIVE BY JOHN VERNON LORD


The Story (A synopsis of the plot) Titlepage of the first illustrated edition Brussels, 1662


Book 1
A fifty year old `lean bodied' and `thin faced' rural gentleman called Alonso Quijano lives in a modest household with his niece and a housemaid in a country village in La Mancha in Spain. He becomes obsessed with books of chivalry, selling many acres of cornfield to purchase the volumes. `From little sleep and too much reading his brain dried up and he lost his wits'. `He had a fancy ... to turn knight errant and travel through the world with horse and armour in search of adventures' with the purpose of `redressing all manner of wrongs'. He found some old rusty armour and mounted his old hack horse to seek adventures; calling himself `Don Quixote de La Mancha' and his nag - `Rocinante'. In the chivalric tradition of knight's being enamoured of some lady or other, Don Quixote chose the name of `Dulcinea del Tobosa' (who was called after a farm girl - Aldonza Lorenzo - who he had been taken with at one time). And so (`for the benefit of the distressed, according to the obligations of knighthood') Don Quixote went on his first expedition and `took whatever road his horse chose, in the belief that in this lay the essence of adventure'. He is knighted by the landlord of an inn , believing him to be a Lord of a castle. He keeps vigil over his armour which he places on a water trough in the courtyard of the inn. He injures a group of carriers when they watered their mules.
After only three days of adventure Don Quixote is beaten up by a servant belonging to travelling silk merchants whom the knight had unsuccessfully attacked when they had refused to acknowledge Dulcinea as the most beautiful maiden in the world. he is rescued by a neighbour and carried home on the back of a donkey. At home his housekeeper, a priest and barber burn all Don Quixote's library of books on chivalry and try to dissuade him from going on more quests. Don Quixote persuades his neighbour Sancho Panza, a plump labourer, to join him as his squire on his second expedition, promising him the governorship of an island if he joined him.


After about fifteen days at home Don Quixote and Sancho Panza depart secretly at night for the next expedition; Sancho mounted upon his ass - Dapple. The second sally lasts just three weeks and takes up almost the rest of Part 1 of the book. They meet with many adventures: the battle with the windmills, which Don Quixote confuses for giants; a lady on her way to Seville in a carriage; a party of Benedictine monks riding mules; adventures in inns - when Maritornes, the maid, goes mistakenly to DQ's bed; when DQ & SP refuse to pay their bill Sancho is tossed in a blanket; a battle with a flock of sheep which DQ believes to be Alonfanfaron's mighty army; Sancho christens Don Quixote as `the Knight of the Sad Countenance'; a chained gang of prisoners being taken to a port to become galley slaves; the rural constabulary going about their business; a canon of Toledo; a religious procession carrying an image of the Virgin; an itinerant barber, who protects his head with his barber's basin which the Don confuses to be Mambrino's helmet; a funeral party escorting a body by night on a bier etc.
Knight and squire are continually being beaten up in the course of these adventures and there are a series of other moral tales (belonging to the pastoral story-telling tradition) interpolated within the main plot. One of these stories (about the lovers `Cardenio and Dorotea; Bk. 1,Ch. 23 ff.) weaves itself in an out of the main narrative for much of Part 1. There are also two monologues delivered by the knight: one (Bk. 1,Ch. 11) is a learned description of the Golden Age of mythology, told during a supper shared with some goatherds who understood not a word he said; the other, later on in the book (Bk. 1,Ch. 37-8) when he addresses a company during dinner at an inn in a debate about whether the career of arms is superior to that of letters, or vice versa. The knight's fellow diners eat throughout his speech and none of them follow up what he has to say. We also have a discussion, towards the end of the book (Bk. 1,Ch. 47-8), between a canon and a priest about fiction and chivalric romances which hints at Cervantes' theory of fiction.
The first book ends with the knight's humiliating return home, imprisoned in a cage on an ox-cart by his village priest and barber for Don Quixote's own good.

Book 2

Don Quixote now sets his heart upon going to a jousting tournament in Saragossa. In the second book we are soon introduced to a young man from DQ's village - Sansón Carrasco a recent graduate of Salamanca University. He takes on the earlier roles of the priest and the barber in attempting to rescue and keep Don Quixote away from danger. Sanson tells DQ & SP the news that their deeds have been published in a book. Knight and Squire take to the road again in Chapter 7 of the second book. DQ is determined to go to Tobosa to pay his respects to Dulcinea. They encounter three peasant girls and by some deception, Sancho hopes that his master will accept one of these as being Dulcinea. DQ believes that the enchanters have made her look like an ugly peasant girl.
Don Quixote unexpectedly wins a battle with another knight (The Knight of the Mirrors), who turns out to be none other than Sansón Carrasco in disguise. Sansón had hoped to get the Don back home to safety by disguising himself as a rival knight errant but the plan didn't work. Shortly afterwards DQ & SP meet the `Knight in the Green Topcoat' (Don Diego de Miranda) which includes the episode of the lion which the Don wants to do battle with, to no avail. Chapters 19-22 are devoted to the pastoral tale, `Camacho's Wedding' in which knight and squire play parts in. Then follows the adventure of Don Quixote's descent into the Cave of Montesinos, after which, in a trance, he tells of the marvellous things he experienced while down there. At a wayside inn Sancho and Don Quixote attend Master Peter's puppet show. DQ gets carried away by the spectacle of the puppet Moorish knights doing battle with Christians and attacks them with his sword. and smashes everything to bits.
Don Quixote accepts an invitation to the unnamed Duke and Duchess's palace and park (Chapters 30-58). They have fun at Don Quixote's expense by organising a series of burlesque pageants and sometimes causing injury to DQ and SP. They arrange for Sancho to govern the Island of Barataria and are surprised by the squire's talent for leadership. Much social satire is prominent in this part of the book. At the beginning of Book Two Don Quixote was intending to go to a jousting tournament in Saragossa but at Chapter 59 Cervantes must have heard of the appearance, in Autumn 1614, of a bogus second part of his novel by one called Avellaneda. Cervantes made artistic use of this occurrence by incorporating it in his own `genuine' novel. In Chapter 59 when Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are eating supper at an inn they here comments about this alleged second volume of their life. The Don is annoyed at Avellaneda for suggesting he has abandoned Dulcinea and the fact that his long-awaited arrival in Saragossa has already been described. He is therefore resolved to go to Barcelona instead. In Chapter 72 Cervantes even kidnaps a prominent character (Don Alvaro Tarfe) from Avellaneda's book.
Don Quixote then gets involved with a bandit by the name of Roque Guinart. Then the knight and Sancho arrive at Barcelona where they are the guests of Don Antonio Moreno who also proposed to have fun at the Don's expense, but less hurtfully so. He is a guest to the squadron of the royal galleys in the port and is received with full naval honours.
In Chapter 64 the Knight of the White Moon enters the scene while Don Quixote is exercising his horse on the beach at Barcelona. The Knight of the White Moon challenges Don Quixote to battle in the presence of the viceroy and a distinguished company. Don Quixote is soon defeated by the Knight of the White Moon, who turns out to be none other than Sampson Carrasco. A condition of his defeat is to abandon knight errantry for the rest of his life. Sampson's good intentions to save Don Quixote are not appreciated by the Barcelonians nor Don Antonio Moreno who ticks him off for spoiling the amusement.
The remaining chapters recount the journey of DQ & SP back to their village which includes a further stay with the Duke and Duchess (who make further fun of him) and sundry other humiliating experiences suffered by the knight.
When they reach home the poorly Don Quixote is put to bed and after a long sleep declares his name to be Alonso Quijano once more and denounces chivalry and knighthood. He dies among the lamentation of friends.
note. It is important to read the prologue to Don Quixote where Cervantes makes a point of drawing us into an obligatory relationship with himself and his text. titlepage of the Blount edition c1612.Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote
 
The first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605 when its Spanish author Cervantes was 57 years of age. It first came out when Shakespeare had just finished writing Macbeth; when the Spanish composer - Tomás Luis de Victoria published his Officium Defunctorum and John Dowland, in England, published his famous Lachrimae. It was the time when the painters - Isaac Oliver and Nicholas Hilliard in England were painting their miniatures in England; when Caravaggio and El Greco were completing their last canvases in Italy and Spain respectively. Velasquez and Zurbarán were young lads and Ribera was a teenager. It was also the year when Guy Fawkes was arrested in the cellars of Parliament in England for his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords during James I's state opening of Parliament. It was a time just before Galileo had made his first thermometer and invented the microscope. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616) had a varied career: he was initially a soldier, having fought at the Battle of Lepanto where he received serious wounds including his left hand. In 1575 he was captured and imprisoned in Algiers for five years and made four daring attempts to escape. He tried to earn a living as a writer and wrote Galatea, a pastoral romance in 1585, and some twenty to thirty plays. He was appointed tax collector in 1594 and three years later was sent to prison for failing to make up the sum due to the treasury. Tradition has it that Cervantes wrote the first part of Don Quixote in prison at Argamasilla in La Mancha. In early January 1605 the book came out in Madrid and soon became a success. He completed the second part of Don Quixote in 1615, just a year before his death.
note. In Don Quixote the Captive's Tale and its conclusion (Cohen's translation pp 345-380) alludes to Cervantes' own life.

 

DON QUIXOTE AND THE WINDMILL GAME, ROLAK COLLECTION