Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra y análisis del Quixote (Life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and analysis of Don Quixote). Inside the edition of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (Biblioteca Nacional de España) [20]

In January 1773, when the Real Academia Española embarked on its project for a standard edition of Don Quixote, Colonel Vicente de los Ríos read out to the institution an “Elogio de Cervantes” (Eulogy to Cervantes) that was the basis of his future biography of Cervantes published in 1780, a year after his death. The project for a biography of Cervantes began a few years earlier, as is stated in this autograph letter, where Vicente de los Ríos establishes with the publisher Antonio de Sancha the terms and conditions for publishing the Memorias de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, sacadas de sus escritos originales, de documentos auténticos y de autores contemporáneos (Memoirs of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, taken from his original writings, authentic documents and contemporary authors).
In contrast to the model of annotated edition, which was followed by Reverend John Bowle in his 1781 edition of Don Quixote and subsequently by Juan Antonio Pellicer in his own edition of 1797–98, the Real Academia Española decided to take as a basis the London luxury edition of 1738, and accordingly included a new biography at the start of the book, accompanied by a thorough literary analysis of Don Quixote. Vicente de los Ríos’s biography was one of the most widely followed and respected until Martín Fernández de Navarrete’s was published in 1819.

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