DON QUIXOTE DLE — Signed by the Illustrator — Edith Grossman Translation

Too expensive for me, but very tempting!

I'll almost certainly be getting this one eventually

Too expensive for me as well, although I will keep my eyes out for second-hand edition in the years to come. The illustrations look excellent, and I'm glad they're using the Grossman translation. (Tom Lathrop wrote a negative review of this translation years ago, but I recall thinking at the time that of the ninety or so "errors" he lists, only about five of them seemed to misrepresent the meaning of Cervantes's original.)

>4 Eumnestes:
Hers is not a word-for-word translation. She writes in her trade edition: “I believe that my primary obligation as a literary translator is to recreate for the reader in English the experience of the reader in Spanish … When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, his language was not archaic or quaint. He wrote in crackling, up-to-date Spanish that was an intrinsic part of his time … That meant that I did not need to find a special, anachronistic, somehow-seventeenth-century voice but could translate his astonishingly fine writing into contemporary English.”

>5 jroger1: Well, the fact that her translation is not word-for-word does not really distinguish her from other translators: no translation is word-for-word, since such a translation would be unreadable. Although Grossman sounds like she's taking an edgy stand, I suspect there are few professional translators who would disagree with her claim that a modern translation of DQ should not sound like 17th-c English.

>6 Eumnestes:
Very true, but there seem to be many readers on various LT forums who prefer to read older translations. They would say that a 17th century book should read like a 17th century classic and not like it was written yesterday. I don’t begrudge them their opinion, but I don’t happen to share it.

My very heavy copy arrived today, and the art is as beautiful as I had imagined. I am particularly pleased that EP did not edit out the Grossman’s footnotes as fine press publishers sometimes do. Her notes are not so numerous or lengthy that they detract from the text, but they provide useful and sometimes essential context.

>8 jroger1: Glad to hear you were able to pick up a copy! How well does the book handle for reading? Is it easy to hold or more for table reading?

>9 CapybaraMan:
It handles okay for a heavy book, but you will probably want to rest it on a pillow or some kind of cushion. A table with a book stand might be better, but I don’t like sitting upright reading for long periods of time.

So I decided I would eventually buy a copy, since I’ve been wanting this for a while despite the price and that I generally don’t go for big heavy books. Living in Canada and having to find the time to call Easton was keeping me from acting on it. Was just playing around on their website and turns out now you can order it online and it ships to Canada! I ordered it without realizing I wouldn’t have the chance to confirm the purchase!

I’d gotten to the point in my collecting that I would occasionally spend around $4-500 CAD on a book I really wanted…this is just over $700 CAD. But I really want it and also lack of shelf space will likely limit the number of books I buy this year. Looking forward to receiving it!

>11 RRCBS: I justify expensive purchases like that by saying that I haven’t purchased anything for a couple of months and so have built up a credit in my book buying budget.

At least that’s what I tell myself …

I just received my copy. Absolutely stunning and well worth the price. My only concern is the heavy weight of the book, not because it's a little too heavy to read comfortably on a lap, but because I'm concerned that if I store the book upright, the text block will start to sag and pull away from the head of the spine. Of course I could just store the book flat rather than upright. but then it would take up more shelf space and not present as well. Does anyone know if the binding, which is in a fairly tight slipcase, can take the strain of standing upright?

I woul either store it flat ot cut some appropriate naterial to fit the bottom exactly and support the pages. I have done both with large books such as this

>13 amp123:
I have several very heavy books similar to the Don that I purchased early in my collecting career before I took an oath never to do it again. (I have violated that oath a few times, though.) They do sag, but I consider it a confirmation of the natural law we call gravity. So I praise Newton and let them sag. I’ve never had the text block pull away from the spine.

Others buy some styrofoam and cut it in strips to place under the text block when shelved.

That is what I have used, and it seems to work well, but I wonder if another material would be better. I don't know, but i have styrofoam and it is easy to cut to fit.

Thanks for the responses. I'll probably try the styrofoam.

Clearly, the way to deal with fhe sagging is to store the book horizontally and then, to deal with the inefficient use of space, simply acquire more LEs for stacking vertically.