Juan de la Cuesta

Juan de la Cuesta (?-1627) was a Spanish printer known for printing (not publishing) the first editions of Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605)^[1] and the Novelas ejemplares (1613), by Miguel de Cervantes, as well as the works of other leading figures of Spain's Golden Age, such as Lope de Vega.

Title page of the first (1605) edition of Cervantes' Don Quijote.

Although he may previously have worked in Segovia,^[2] and there was also a Juan de la Cuesta based in Alcalá de Henares in 1589^[3] (although the latter may refer to another person^[4]), it was not until 1599 that he started working in Madrid, taken on as manager of the printing shop owned by María Rodríguez de Rivalde,^[5] widow of the printers Juan Íñiguez de Lequerica and Pedro Madrigal.^[3]

An inventory carried out of the premises in September 1595,^[6] just a few years before he was taken on to run the business for the woman who would become his mother-in-law,^[7] referred to six presses, and the year they started printing the Quixote, 1604, it had twenty employees.^[6]

He married María de Quiñones in 1604,^[8] and in 1607 he left Madrid, abandoning his pregnant wife,^[7] who would, after her husband's death, take over the business and become an important printer in her own right.^[8]

Cuesta's print shop, at 87 Calle Atocha in Madrid, has been restored, and is now the headquarters of the Sociedad Cervantina, founded by Luis Astrana Marín in 1953.^[9] It has a replica of Cuesta's printing press. It was officially opened as a museum by the king and queen of Spain in 1987.^[who?][1]

References

1. "La casa museo de Cervantes abre sus puertas". El País. December 15, 1987. from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2013.
2. Jurado, Augusto (2007). Juan de la Cuesta impresor de El Quijote [sic] por encargo del librero Francisco de Robles y breves noticias de ambos y del autor de la obra Miguel de Cervantes. Madrid: Sociedad Cervantina. ISBN 9788461158386. from the original on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 2016-11-09.
3. Eisenberg, Daniel [in Spanish] (1983). "On Editing Don Quijote". Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. 3 (1): 3–34. from the original on 2013-05-12. Retrieved 2013-05-27.
4. Montero Reguera, José [in Spanish] (1997). El Quijote: o la crítica contemporánea. Alcalá de Henares: Centro de Estudios Cervantinos. p. 27. ISBN 9788488333117.
5. Lucía Megías, José Manuel [in Spanish] (2011). Adquisición: Donaciones y compras: "Don Quijote de la Mancha" (PDF). Biblioteca Nacional de España. (PDF) from the original on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 2013-05-27.
6. Michael, Ian (2001). "How Don Quixote came to Oxford: The two Bodleian copies of Don Quixote, Part I (Madrid: Juan de la Cuesta, 1605)". In Griffin, Nigel; Griffin, Clive; Southworth, Eric; Thompson, Colin (eds.). Culture and Society in Habsburg Spain. Studies Presented to R.W. Truman by his Pupils and Colleagues on the Occasion of His Retirement. London: Tamesis Books. pp. 95–120, at pp. 98–99. ISBN 9781855660809. from the original on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 2016-11-09.
7. Martínez Pereira, Ana; Torné, Emilio (2008). "82 pliegos +1. Hacia la reconstrucción tipográfica de la princeps del Quijote". In Dotras Bravo, Dolores (ed.). "Tus obras los rincones de la tierra descubren": Actas del VI Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Cervantistas, Alcalá de Henares, 13 al 16 de diciembre de 2006. Alcalá de Henares: Centro de Estudios Cervantinos. pp. 503–521, at p. 504. from the original on 2021-08-18. Retrieved 2016-11-09.
8. Gutiérrez, Lourdes; Lafuente, Purificación; Carrillo, Laura (2015). "Impresoras en Madrid s.XVII". Mujeres impresoras. Guía de recursos bibliográficos. Biblioteca Nacional de España. from the original on March 5, 2021. Retrieved July 4, 2021.
9. La Sociedad Cervantina: un lugar lleno de historia, Madrid: Sociedad Cervantina, 2019, from the original on 2021-02-28, retrieved 2021-08-18^{[dead link]}