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Four volumes. Royal 8vo. (10 x 6.5 ins); [xii], xlii, 445; viii, (4), 484; x, (2), 512 ; ix, (3), 508 pp; 37 plates in total (including the four frontispieces), each behind tissue-guards, etched by Adolphe Lalauze (1838-1906). Publisher's original red cloth spine over brown boards with gilt figure holding a shield and spear to spines, gilt title lettering; top edges gilt, others untrimmed and in many cases uncut. Scattered spots of foxing to endpapers and prelims, never heavy. Spines a touch sun-faded and lightly rubbed along edges. A near Fine copy. First translated by Motteux in four volumes in 1711-12, and acknowledged as one of the best of all the many translations due to its rich and racy diction and quaint turns of expression. Of this translation Blackwood's Magazine says, "This is, we think, out of all sight, the richest and best. Shelton's Quixote is undoubtedly well worthy of being studied by the English scholar; but it is far too antiquated an affair to serve the purposes of the English reader. Motteux, the translator of Cervantes and Rabelais, possesses a native humour that no other translator that we ever met with has approached". W.H. Prescott, in Miscellaneous (1845) pp 149-50 states, "The most popular versions in English are those of Motteux, Jarvis, and Smollett. Perhaps the first is the best of all". Geo. Ticker, in his History of Spanish Literature (1846) v3, p384 says, "On the whole, the most agreeable and the best (translation), though somewhat too free, is that by Motteux". J Gibson Lockhart likewise gave his preference to Motteux's translation. Born in Rouen, Normandy, in 1660, Motteux came to England at the revocation of the edict of Nantes (1685), living at first with his godfather and relative, Paul Dominique, the starting up a business with an East India warehouse in Leadenhall Street, London. He was to die in nebulous circumstances, in 1718, in a house of ill-repute in Star Court, Butcher Row, near St Clement's Church. (DNB, vXIII, pp 1092-1094). Seller Inventory # 15209
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