Five Rare Books for Collectors: Spanish & Portuguese Golden Age Literature

Highlights from Richard C Ramer Old and Rare Books' latest Spanish & Portuguese Golden Age Literature catalogue including:

* Relacion de la real tragicomedia con que los Padres de la Compania de Jesus en su Colegio de S. Anton de Lisboa recibieron a la Magestad Catolica de Felipe II de Portugal, y de su entrada en este Reino, cõ lo que se hizo en las Villas, y Ciudades en que entrò. Recogido todo verdaderamente, y dedicado al Excelentissimoo Señor Don Theolosio
Segundo Duque de Bragança, &c by João Sardinha Mimoso, Lisbon, 1620

First edition of an exceedingly rare tragicomedy performed before King Philip III of Spain (II of Portugal) and his Queen D. Isabel in the Royal Jesuit College of Santo Antonio, Lisbon, in 1619. The play, by Antonio de Sousa, describes the great deeds of Portuguese discoverers such as Vasco da Gama, and the deeds of others such as D. Francisco de Almeida, first Viceroy of India, and Alfonso de Albuquerque. Other characters include D. Manuel I and his councillors, the Ocean, the Earth, Brazil, and the provinces of Malabar. Barbosa Machado commented that this tragicomedy was greatly admired by contemporaries because in the course of its five acts, some 350 animals, birds and marine monsters were represented.

* Primera y segunda parte de Guzman de Alfarache by Mateo Alemán, Burgos, 1619

First complete edition of this masterpiece of the picaresca novel which exerted an enormous influence on European literature in general, and on Cervantes’ writing Don Quijote in particular.