Acceso usuarios
Enrique Rodríguez Cepeda
During the period 1750-1782, Spain published more editions of Don Quixote than at any other time. A special type of Quixote, illustrated with woodcuts and very cheaply priced, was sold in the street; it was published by M. Martín between 1765 and 1782, in a total edition of approximately 30,000 copies (9 printings). Another Quixote, with plates and engravings, was published for middle-class professionals by A. Sancha and Ibarra, in a printing of 3,000 copies. Yet a third type, intended for the aristocracy and as official gifts of the govenrment, was published in 1780 in an edition of 1,000 copies by the Royal Academy. A particularly significant aspect of these newly compiled statistics is the light they shed on a previously unsuspected, or at least insufficiently appreciated, phenomenon: the extent to which this most intellectual of Spanish literary texts penetrated the popular culture of the period.
