Milestones of Science Books

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, Miguel de.

Los Trabaios de Persiles y Sigismunda, historia setentrional.

Brussels: Por Huberto Antonio, 1618.

7th Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002931

8vo (168 x 101 mm). [8], 604 (i.e. 504) pp. Signatures: *⁴ A-Z⁸ Aa-Hh⁸ Ii⁴. Page numbers 368-467 omitted. Bound in contemporary vellum, spine lettered in ink, yapp edges (slight soiling and browning of vellum, laces gone). Text somewhat browned throughout, occasional minor spotting, tiny wormhole to gutter of first two gatherings. Provenance: Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau* (signed 'Dtn. Rochambeau' on front pastedown)); Juan Carrera Roldan collection. A very good copy in untouched binding of the time. ----

Palau 53900. Seventh edition, and the first printed outside the Iberian peninsula. Published only one year after the first edition (Madrid). The last work by Cervantes, The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda is a romance which relates the ideal love and unbelievable vicissitudes of a couple, who, starting from the Arctic regions, arrive in Rome, where they find a happy ending to their complicated adventure. It was completed on April 20, 1616, just two days before his death and published in 1617 almost simultaneously in Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Pamplona, Paris, Port au Prince, Soria and Valencia. Persiles y Sigismunda stands in opposition to his famous novel Don Quixote by its embrace of the fantastic rather than the commonplace. While Cervantes is known primarily for Don Quixote, widely regarded as one of the foremost classic novels of all time, he himself believed Persiles to be his crowning achievement. This edition is very rare. OCLC locate only 9 copies in public libraries, including 6 in Spain and one in the US (New York University). "Edicion estimada, fiel copia de la principe" (Palau).
*Donatien Marie Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau (1750-1813), served in the American Revolution as an aide-de-camp to his father, the comte de Rochambeau. In the 1790s he participated in an unsuccessful campaign to establish French authority in Martinique and Santo Domingo. He was later assigned to the Italian army, and was appointed to the military command of the Ligurian Republic. In 1802, he was chosen to help lead an (unsuccessful) expeditionary force against Santo Domingo. He was captured by the English and returned to England as a prisoner on parole, where he remained interned for almost nine years. He was exchanged in 1811, and returned to the family château, where he resumed the work of classifying the family's growing collection of maps, which his father had begun. He also enriched the collections with new acquisitions, in particular ones pertaining to the military campaigns of his son, Auguste-Philippe Donatien de Vimeur. In 1812 the vicomte de Rochambeau was recalled to active service. On October 16, 1813, he was mortally wounded in the "Battle of Nations," and died three days later at Leipzig, at the age of 59. (see Diana Smith, Guide to the Rochambeau Papers and Rochambeau Family Cartographic Archive, 1995).

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