La Galatea

Madrid: En la Oficina de la Viuda de Manuel Fernandez, 1772. 1772. Good +. La Galatea was Cervantes' first book, published in 1585. Under the guise of pastoral characters, it is an examination of love and contains many allusions to contemporary literary figures. It enjoyed modest success, but a promised sequel was never published.
This 1772 edition is an improved version of a 1736 edition.
(Givanel y Mas 330, "this edition, beautifully printed and on good paper, follows the text of that of 1736, but improving it.")

Commentaries: 
"It is very certain that (Cervantes) had a special fondness for the Galatea: he spared it at the burning of Don Quixote's library, praised its invention, and made the Priest exhort the Barber to
await the sequel which is foreshadowed in the Galatea's text. . . For thirty-one years Cervantes held out the promise of the Galatea's Second Part . . ." (Fitzmaurice Kelly, A history of Spanish Literature, p. 218).

"The Galatea is a vast compendium of verses of all sorts and shapes. There are songs, elegies, eulogies, debates, satires, in all possible combinations of line and stanza, and the quality of the
work mans hip, as distinct from inspiration, is high. Nothing, however, holds our attention.  Even at its weakest the Cervantine prose is superior to his verse, and the reader of the Galatea skims rapidly over the poems to continue with the thread of the narrative. But the latter also is
poesy; it is a dream world of art in a perfected nature" (William J. Entwistle, Cervantes, pp. 47-48). "Galatea also offers detailed evidence of the author's acquaintance with Spanish poets, writers, fellow soldiers and political figures during these years. Various clues permit the
identification of several pseudo-shepherds with historical persons" (Mary Malcolm Gaylord,  "Cervantes' other fiction" in The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes, ed. Cascardi, p. 106).

This copy is Good + in contemporary vellum (The covers are moderately soiled and age discolored, and there are two chips missing at the top right of the front cover.  The front hinge is cracked but holding, and the binding overall is sound.  The endpapers are wrinkled and coming loose from the covers and the rear pastedown has tears as well.  It has the tie holes on both covers, but the ties are lacking.  The text is age darkened at the edges, but quite clean and unmarked inside. FO.