ALEMÁN, Mateo (1547-1615). Primera, y segunda parte de la vida, y hechos del picaro Guzman de Alfarache. Madrid: Lorenzo Francisco Mojados, 1750. 4° (192 x 143mm). Pp. [8], 534, [2], text printed in double column. Title within decorative typographic border and with woodcut device, woodcut intials, decorative typographic and woodcut head- and tailpieces. (A few leaves trimmed close just touching signatures or catchwords.) Early 20th-century red morocco, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, gilt edges (spine a fraction darkened).

ALEMÁN, Mateo (1547-1615). Primera, y segunda parte de la vida, y hechos del picaro Guzman de Alfarache. Madrid: Lorenzo Francisco Mojados, 1750. 4° (192 x 143mm). Pp. [8], 534, [2], text printed in double column. Title within decorative typographic border and with woodcut device, woodcut intials, decorative typographic and woodcut head- and tailpieces. (A few leaves trimmed close just touching signatures or catchwords.) Early 20th-century red morocco, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, gilt edges (spine a fraction darkened).

Alemán's famous picaresque novel is written in an autobiographical style, with a mature Guzmán looking back on his life and adventures as a picaro, a young street urchin. Some early printings are included in the Fernández collection (lots 174-177), and it would be hard to over estimate its popularity in the 17th century, when it went through twenty editions in a single decade. But few were in quarto and none so generously spaced as this. In fact, Mojados published two editions in 1750 (the other having 476pp), and this appears to be the rarer of the two. Palau 6709-II.