Critical Images. The Canonization of ‘Don Quixote’ through Illustrated Editions of the Eighteenth Century by Rachel Schmidt (review)

360 letters in canada 1999 The revised STC (volumes 1 and 2 published in 1976 and 1986) includes seven other items tentatively attributed to Rastell. All but one of those attributions (STC 17324.5) are certainly wrongBbut they should have been discussed. Moreover, STC includes another six items unequivocally attributed to Rastell (one being his first lawbook, possibly his first book) and two almost certainly printed for him. A perfunctory list of `Possible Additions' on page 177 hardly helps: a bibliography that omits at least 14 per cent of its subject's extant work cannot reasonably claim to be `completed .' The worst problems, however, are the bibliographical descriptions themselves B especially the transcripts. Masquerading as quasi-facsimile, these attempt to represent Rastell's blackletter by bold roman B something that no competent bibliographer would have approved. Lacking a matching long `s,' whoever botched together the camera-ready copy foisted in a jagged bitmap substitute (which always prints left of centre), but made no attempt either to reproduce or to indicate ligatures. Perverse substitutes were found for a few other characters (the most ludicrous being a lightweight sans-serif `1°', mutilated at the right, which we are seemingly meant to interpret as `ter'); elsewhere an appended apostrophe apparently means `I give up.' Furthermore, despite what is said in the Preface, the transcripts were not adequately proofed against the typescript. In entry no. 12, for example, four virgulae appear as quotation marks that should have been globally changed, four are misprinted as vertical bars, and three necessary vertical bars are omitted. Misprinted `Eyperyence' is miscorrected to `Experyence,' `Sensuall' lacks its capital, a `de' character is misprinted as simple `d', and `elementes' is hyphenated and divided. Regrettably, the well-intentioned publication of Devereux's typescript has been incurably bungled, and John Rastell remains without a bibliography that is either complete or trustworthy. (PETER W.M. BLAYNEY) Rachel Schmidt. Critical Images. The Canonization of `Don Quixote' through Illustrated Editions of the Eighteenth Century McGill-Queen's University Press. xviii, 248. $55.00 With impressive scholarship, Rachel Schmidt re-evaluates the reception of Don Quixote in seventeenth-century Europe, examining especially the interpretations posited by editors and commentators of the first two luxury editions in Spanish B the first published in London, the second in Madrid B and the frequently different renderings suggested by the illustrators of the texts. Other editions of the period are not overlooked (for example, Smollett, Hayman, Ibarra), but it is the Lord Carteret edition of 1738 and that of the Real Academia of 1780 that are central to Schmidt's analysis of the convoluted process towards the canonization of Don Quixote. What humanities 361 Schmidt questions, and does so very well, is the widely accepted view that the Romantic evaluation of Don Quixote as hero, and Cervantes as a `man of ... sentiment,' represented a `rupture' from previous readings. Cleverly combining a knowledge of social and political history, hermeneutical theories of reception, and the history of art and ideas, she successfully leads the reader through the frequently overlapping fields of burlesque, satiric, sentimental, and heroic readings in both texts and illustrations. The 1738 edition set the tone by transforming the burlesque text into a didactic satire of `pernicious literature,' and presenting a new, dignified biography of Cervantes as a champion of both Christian Spain and European neoclassical values, whose aim was to educate as well as entertain. Nevertheless, although already recognized as a classic in both England and France, Don Quixote still struggled for recognition within Spain. It was largely to remedy this embarrassing situation that the Real Academia commissioned the 1780 edition, combining nationalist sentiment and artistic praise to produce an edition that would elevate Don Quixote to a cultural icon. A reconstructed biography of Cervantes now casts him as a sentimentalist, and Don Quixote's risible actions become the source heroic steadfastness, which the Romantics embraced. Schmidt's discussion of the illustrators and their renderings of various episodes is particularly illuminating, especially the struggle between publishers and artists to control the latters' `choice of episodes and use of``fantasy'' (imagination)' which was frequently at odds with the written commentaries. Such independence on the part of the illustrators could lead...