THE LIFE OF GUZMAN DE ALFARACHE, OR, THE ROGUE. TO WHICH IS ADDED, THE CELEBRATED TRAGI-COMEDY, CELESTINA. WRITTEN IN SPANISH BY MATHEO ALEMAN. DONE INTO ENGLISH FROM THE NEW FRENCH VERSION, AND COMPAR'D WITH THE ORIGINAL. BY SEVERAL HANDS. ADORN'D WITH SCULPTURES BY GASPAR BOUTTATS.

1708, 1707, London, printed for R. Bonwick, W. Freeman, T. Goodwin, J. Walthoe, M. Wotton, J. Nicholson, S. Manship, R. Parker, B. Tooke, and R. Smith, pp(xx) + 547; (iv)+386 +(iv) +102, Celestina has a separate title-page and pagination. Engraved frontispiece and sixteen black and white engraved plates. Half calf, red labels lettered in gilt. ESTC T86354, twelve copies in the UK. Little is known of Matheo Aleman's life - this is one of the masterpieces of the Picaresque novel, and had a tremendous success both in Spain and in Shakespeare's England, which led to the publication of numerous pirated editions, and unfortunately he ended his life in poverty. Indeed, at one point when Aleman was in prison for debt, he was for the time being under the same roof as Cervantes, who was by no means amicably disposed towards him. "Guzman is Charlie Chaplin viewed by a sixteenth-century Calvinist minister. At every moment he is falling into some disgrace or humiliation, which the commentary then explains, no doubt correctly enough, as an inevitable consequence of our sinful human nature. Guzman de Alfarache then is a cautionary novel, saturated through and through with a belief in the utter corruption of human nature. But its pessimism goes beyond that. Aleman is obsessed not only by the wickedness of man, but by the squalor and ugliness of life." Gerald Brenan, The Literature of the Spanish People. Bindings a little rubbed, contents somewhat browned and foxed, otherwise good.…