Spain

Spain is probably the country in Europe where the lessons of the Anglo-American tradition have penetrated most deeply. The key manuals have in fact all been made available in translation: McKerrow with the introduction by David McKitterick in 1998 (Madrid, Arco); Gaskell in 1999 (Gijon, Trea), and Bowers with the introduction by Tanselle in 2001 (Madrid, Arco). An important part in awakening an interest in analytical bibliography orientated towards textual study has come from scholars working in British universities, such as Edmund Wilson, Don W. Cruikshank and Trevor Dadson, while another significant event has been the discovery and translation of the printing manual by Victor Alonso de Paredes (1984; see §2).

For the most part bibliographical method has been applied to the texts of the siglo d’oro and to the principal text of Spanish literature, Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), published in Madrid in two parts in 1605 and 1615. The making of Cervantes’ novel in the printing shop has been the object of a series of studies by Robert M. Flores; see The Compositors of the First and Second Madrid Editions of Don Quixote (London, MHRA, 1975); ‘The Compositors of the First Edition of Don Quixote, Part II’, Journal of Hispanic Philology, vol. 6 (1981), pp. 3-44; ‘A Tale of Two Printings: Don Quixote Part II’, Studies in Bibliography, vol. 39 (1986), pp. 281-296; ‘More on the Compositors of the First Edition of Don Quixote, Part II’, Studies in Bibliography, vol. 43 (1990), pp. 272-285. They show the Greg-Bowers model being put into practice through running title analysis, compositor identification and other traits of the trade. Flores has also edited an old-spelling text of Don Quijote based on a close reading of the first editions (Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1988). For a Spanish judgment on Flores’ results, see Francisco Rico, ‘Componedores y grafías en el Quijote de 1604 (sobre un libro de R. M. Flores), in Actas del Tercer Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Cervantistas (Cala Galdans, Menorca, 20 a 25 de ocubre de 1997) (Palma de Mallorca, Universidad de las Islas Baleares, 1999, pp. 63-83); ‘Don Quijote, Madrid, 1604, en prensa’, 101 (1999), pp. 415-434. One as yet unexplored aspect of the editing of Cervantes’ text regards the application of Greg’s rationale of copy-text, since the author did make a number of revisions to the substance of the first part, mainly in the Madrid 1608, but does not seem to have revised the form. But the sacrality of the text of the princeps makes the issue a difficult one; cfr. the excellent summary of the history of editing Don Quijote in the critical edition by Francisco Rico (Barcelona, Crítica, 2001).

The best source for an overview of the relationship between bibliography and textual criticism in Spanish literature is Imprenta y crítica textual en el siglo de oro, estudios publicados bajo la dirección de Francisco Rico (Valladolid, Fundación Santander Central Hispano, 2000), containing essays by Pablo Andrés, Roger Chartier, D.W. Cruickshank, Trevor J. Dadson, Elena Delgado, Giuseppe Di Stefano, Arantxa Domingo, Sonia Garza, Julián Martín Abad, José María Micó, Jaime Moll, Francisco Rico, and José Luis Rodríguez.