Vanessa Pintado on The Hispanic Society of America Library and La Celestina

Sponsored by the Caxton Club.

October Midday Program

Caxtonians do love to go searching after a first. A first edition.

A first printing. A first of its kind. Especially when the prize is a one-and-only.

Now here’s a chance to realize that quest. We’ll be taking you to New York’s Hispanic Society of America Library, which houses the first editions of both parts of Don Quixote (1605 and 1615). But wait, there’s more. The library holds …

• the sole surviving leaf of the first Bible in any vernacular (1478)

• the first Spanish grammar (1492) and dictionary (1495)

• the first book to be printed during its author’s lifetime, Speculum vitae humanae (1468)

… as well as the only copy in the world of the first edition of one of the most celebrated works of Spanish literature, Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, better known as La Celestina.

La Celestina is regarded as the first masterpiece of Spanish prose and the greatest work of the early Renaissance in Spain.

Seeing and hearing about just a bit of this would be worth charging some windmills, let alone logging into Zoom or taking an elevator at the Union League Club. Especially because our guide will be La Celestina expert Vanessa Pintado, assistant curator of manuscripts and rare books.

Let Sancho Panza to water the horses while you battle to the head of the line by registering today!

To register for the online presentation: https://caxtonclub.org/event-6296361/Registration

Even if you can’t attend at the scheduled time, if you’re interested, please register. After the program, we’ll send an email to all registrants, asking if you’d like a link to the complete recording. That way you can see the program even if you couldn’t attend live, ran into technical issues, or simply wanted to watch it again.