Don Quixote
The first part of Don Quixote goes on sale in Madrid
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗Readers in Valladolid may have had the book by Christmas 1604 — before the January date Madrid usually celebrates as its publication.
Printed in 1604, sold in 1605
During January 1605 the Madrid bookseller Francisco de Robles began selling the first edition of Miguel de Cervantes's El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha, printed by Juan de la Cuesta with a 1605 imprint.
The physical printing had happened earlier — in Madrid between 26 September and 1 December 1604. A legally required price authorization, the tasa, was signed at Valladolid on 20 December, which is what allowed completed copies to be sold.
The 16 January problem
No authoritative source consulted establishes 16 January as the publication day; the Biblioteca Nacional de España supports only January 1605.
The dated evidence points earlier. Some provisional copies were likely circulating in Valladolid by Christmas 1604, and the scholar Francisco Rico estimates Madrid readers may have obtained copies by Epiphany, 6 January 1605.
Eighty sheets in two months
The volume ran to 664 pages in 83 quarto sheets, with a probable first run of about 1,500 or 1,750 copies. Eighty sheets of main text and index were composed and printed in roughly two months — a pace that helps explain the first edition's abundant errors.
Demand followed quickly: two Lisbon editions received licenses in February and March 1605, a corrected second Madrid edition came in the spring, and nine editions appeared within the first ten years. This was the editio princeps of what is now called Part One; Cervantes's separately titled second part did not appear until 1615.
Sources
Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 2 audit passes, 1 issue open Date disputed
How this was checked
Researched from the web into a fact sheet, rewritten from that sheet, then audited against it by a different model. How the pipeline works →
Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at 1605-01.
What the sources leave uncertain
- No authoritative source consulted establishes 16 January as the publication day. The Biblioteca Nacional de España supports only January 1605.
- The dated evidence points earlier: the tasa permitted sale from 20 December 1604, copies probably circulated in Valladolid by Christmas, and Madrid copies may have been available by 6 January.
- The title page says 1605, but most of the physical printing was completed in 1604. The safest event date is therefore 1605-01, with the exact day disputed.