# Is "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (Juan de la Cuesta, 1605) is identified by: Part I, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, was printed by Juan de la Cuesta at Madrid in 1605 at the cost of the bookseller Francisco de Robles (printing finished December 1604, on sale January 1605); Part II followed from Cuesta at Madrid in 1615. Original language Spanish: Part I Cuesta/Robles, Madrid, 1605; Part II Cuesta, Madrid, 1615.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Part I, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, was printed by Juan de la Cuesta at Madrid in 1605 at the cost of the bookseller Francisco de Robles (printing finished December 1604, on sale January 1605)
- Part II followed from Cuesta at Madrid in 1615
- Cuesta printed a SECOND Madrid edition later in 1605 that fixed some errors and introduced new ones — a classic 'first thus' trap — and pirated 1605 editions appeared at Lisbon and Valencia; only the first Cuesta printing is the princeps
- The 1605 first survives as an institutional rarity, so identification rests on the title-page imprint, the preliminaries/tasa, and known first-state textual errors, not on any edition statement
- Publisher imprint reads Juan de la Cuesta
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Miguel de Cervantes |
| Publisher | Juan de la Cuesta |
| Year | 1605 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Part I, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, was printed by Juan de la Cuesta at Madrid in 1605 at the cost of the bookseller… |
| Book-club edition exists? | — |

## Points of issue
Part I, El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, was printed by Juan de la Cuesta at Madrid in 1605 at the cost of the bookseller Francisco de Robles (printing finished December 1604, on sale January 1605); Part II followed from Cuesta at Madrid in 1615. Cuesta printed a SECOND Madrid edition later in 1605 that fixed some errors and introduced new ones — a classic 'first thus' trap — and pirated 1605 editions appeared at Lisbon and Valencia; only the first Cuesta printing is the princeps. The 1605 first survives as an institutional rarity, so identification rests on the title-page imprint, the preliminaries/tasa, and known first-state textual errors, not on any edition statement.

## Is this the true first?
Original language Spanish: Part I Cuesta/Robles, Madrid, 1605; Part II Cuesta, Madrid, 1615. The first English — and the first translation into ANY language — is Thomas Shelton's, printed at London for Edward Blount [and William Barret]: Part I 1612, the complete two-part translation 1620. The early line is entirely London/UK; there is no early US edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
Beware 'first thus' traps: later English translations (Phillips 1687; Motteux 1700-03; Jarvis 1742; Smollett 1755) and 19th-20th-century illustrated reprints are routinely mislabeled 'first edition.' None is the true first, which is Shelton (London, 1612/1620) in English and Cuesta (Madrid, 1605/1615) in Spanish.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Don Quixote* by Miguel de Cervantes a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/don-quixote
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.