Don Quixote.

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Creator

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

Title

Don Quixote.

Coverage

New York

Publisher

David Huntington

Date

1815

Description

Translated by T. Smollett, 3 vols.
The focus of my recent collecting has been illustrated editions of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and I have many. But none mean more to me than this tiny three-volume edition.

My father went to college only because he won one of the (then) new Conant Scholarships, designed to open Harvard up to “a different kind of student.” He was penniless when he arrived from Iowa in 1935. He had to go hungry on Saturday nights, because he could not afford to “dress for dinner” at the residential house where he could otherwise eat for free because of the scholarship. He saved nickels to take my mother out for a Coca-Cola on dates.

After my father’s death, while going through the few books he bought at college with money he could not really afford to spend, my wife discovered these three little volumes. So my father loved Cervantes, too!

Source

Daniel R. Coquillette