Two “unique” copies of Don Quixote auctioned in Paris

In front of a huge shelf, Ed Maggs admires old books that have made his family bookstore in London famous for 170 years.

It was there that a Bolivian diplomat acquired two “unique” volumes of

nearly a century ago , which are now up for auction.

Appointed Bolivian Ambassador to France in 1947, Jorge Ortiz Linares was the son-in-law of “tin king” Simon Patino, a Bolivian living in Paris who had made his fortune in the mining industry in the early 20th century.

A fervent collector, he was looking for an original edition of

, the famous work by Miguel de Cervantes today considered the first modern novel.

The obsessive search of a collector

In the 1930s, his research led Jorge Ortiz to the British capital, "probably the most important place for the international trade in old books", explains Ed Maggs to AFP.

The latter is the great-great-grandson of Uriah Maggs, who in 1853 founded his own small bookshop, which over the years became a recognized establishment of British kings and exiled monarchs such as Manuel II of Portugal and Alfonso XIII of Spain.

After five generations, Maggs Bros. has come to own 1,358 rare editions of Spanish-language books, collected in a catalog published in 1927 "still cited by bibliographers today," says Jonathan Reilly, an expert at Maggs. .

The bookseller shows works that caught the eye of the Bolivian at the time: two original editions of

, book I published in 1605 and book II published in 1615, on sale for 3,500 pounds, "a real fortune for the time" (the equivalent of 174,000 pounds -201,000 euros- today according to the Bank of England converter).

But when the collector enters the bookstore, the object of his desire has already been sold and he resigns himself to leaving his contact details while waiting for a new arrival of books.

Years later, in 1936, he got the long-awaited call from the bookseller and set off on a hasty trip to London.

He ended up buying a third edition of Book I and a first edition of Book II, says Anne Heilbronn, the manager of books and manuscripts at Sotheby's auction house.

He paid then 100 pounds for the first and 750 for the second.

Expert Voices: Jean-Baptiste de Proyart on The Ortiz Collection https://t.co/UBYdnFhzgh

— Sotheby's France (@SothebysFr) November 28, 2022

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At auction in Paris on December 14

Since then, the books have remained out of public view.

But we can now admire them at the headquarters of Sotheby's in London, before an auction on December 14 in Paris where the works should sell for 400,000 to 600,000 euros.

The first editions of Book I of

are rare because, sent en masse to Latin America, many were lost in a shipwreck near Havana, recalls the auction house.

Published in 1608, the third edition was the last printed during Cervantes' lifetime and corrected by him, underlines Anne Heilbronn, who assures that "all the translations that we have today come from this third edition".

But what makes these books "unique" is that they were bound in the 18th century for an English collector and it is very rare to find

with such old bindings, she adds.

A collection valued between 1.8 and 2.5 million euros

On December 21, 1936, Jorge Ortiz took advantage of his visit to Maggs Bros to acquire three other jewels: a first edition of

(1613) by Cervantes,

(1605) in which Garcilaso de la Vega recounts the conquest of America from the point of view of the natives and

(1553) on the conquest of Mexico, the first work in history to mention California.

On Wednesday, the five books will find the mythical bookstore for a few hours before leaving for Paris where they will be auctioned with the 83 other pieces from the Ortiz Linares collection, gathered with the help of the expert Jean-Baptiste de Proyart.

Among them is a first edition of Goya's book of engravings La Tauromaquía (1816) and large original editions by French authors such as Molière, Montesquieu, Montaigne and Descartes.

Total sales were estimated at between 1.8 and 2.5 million euros.

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