The Exemplary Novels of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (in 2 vols.)

London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1822. First thus. Very Good +. Attractively bound in late-nineteenth-century half dark green calf over iridescent marbled paper boards. Two volumes, twelvemo. Complete, xvi, 391 pp.; vii, [1] erratum, 479 pp. Gilt spine in six compartments with raised bands and gilt rule to boards. Top edges gilt. Minor shelfwear and a bit of foxing. An appealing set in a handsome binding, Very Good+

Maria Sarah Moore (1780 - 1842), a Blue Stocking, was the first woman to publish translations of the Novelas ejemplares and probably the first woman to publish an English translation of any work by Cervantes. In The Cervantean Heritage, (truncated) Frances Luttikhuizen describes the present translation as “well worth analyzing” because “it belongs to the general nineteenth century movement of literary expurgations, more specifically, to the period…[called] female-authored Moral-Domestic fiction,” (p. 89).

Moore was the daughter of Peter Moore (1753 - 1827), a Member of Parliament and a civil servant of the East India Company, and a resident of a manor in Monken Hadley, a historical village at the northern edge of Greater London. A record of the parish of Monken Hadley reveals that Moore was the primary heir to her father's significant wealth and property, and she lived at the manor, unmarried, until her death.

Note that the preface to volume two promises a forthcoming third volume, though only two volumes were ever published. These two volumes contain ten of Cervantes’ twelve Novelas ejemplares.

Luttikhuizen, Frances. “Englishing Cervantes’ Exemplary Novels." In The Cervantean Heritage: Reception and Influence of Cervantes in Britain (2009), pp. 84-94. Very Good +. (Inventory #: 7014)