Don Quixote Visits a Printing Press and Discovers Avellaneda’s Sequel brings the conflict over who may tell Don Quixote’s story into the material world of its production. On a quiet walk through Barcelona, Don Quixote sees the rival continuation being prepared for print; his discovery makes the press, its workers, and the circulation of books part of the novel’s self-conscious contest over truth and authorship.

Background and the Rival Continuation

The discovery has a history beyond the Barcelona workshop. Cervantes’s First Part had appeared in 1605 and quickly attracted attempts at unauthorized publication and continuation. Years later, while composing the Second Part, Cervantes encountered a small volume printed at Tarragona under the name of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, styling itself as a second volume of Don Quixote’s history. By the time the novel reaches the Barcelona episode, the rival book is no longer merely an authorial grievance: it has become an object that Don Quixote himself can encounter.

The Second Part’s dedication to the Count of Lemos likewise presents the counterfeit continuation as an immediate pressure on publication. Cervantes says Don Quixote is on his way to render homage to the Count and links the urgency of sending him forth to public impatience with the other Don Quixote, who has travelled through the world under the name of a second part. The dedication jokingly imagines an emperor in China asking for the book and offering Cervantes a rectorship without travel money; Cervantes answers by stressing that the Count of Lemos already sustains and protects him. Beneath the comedy is a contrast between imagined international demand and the concrete patronage that supports the author.

The Visit to the Press

Don Quixote chooses to walk rather than ride because he fears that boys would follow him on horseback. With Sancho Panza and two servants supplied by Don Antonio Moreno, he moves through the city on foot. Above a doorway, large lettering announces, “Books printed here.” Don Quixote is delighted: he has never seen a printing office and is curious about how one works.

Inside, the process unfolds in separate operations. Sheets are drawn in one place, corrected in another, type is set, and proofs are revised. Don Quixote moves from case to case, asking what the workers are doing and watching their answers with wonder. The scene makes the press a working environment rather than an abstract emblem of fame: books take shape through labor, translation, correction, and decisions about what is worth printing.

He encounters a translator who has rendered an Italian book into Spanish and a printer setting it in type. Their exchange brings commercial calculation into view. The author expects to sell the book and wants money rather than further proof of a reputation he believes his previous works have already earned; Don Quixote, by contrast, warns that a large print run can leave an author saddled with unsold copies, especially when a book is unusual or insufficiently sensational. Their disagreement gives the visit a practical dimension: literary production depends not only on the worth of a text, but also on its market and the risks taken by authors and printers.

The Rival Book in Type

At another case, Don Quixote sees a sheet being corrected for a book identified as the Second Part of the history of Don Quixote, attributed to a writer from Tordesillas. He recognizes it as the book he has heard about and had expected to be burned as an intrusive imposture. Its presence in the shop changes the rival continuation from distant rumor into visible print: its words are being corrected and prepared for readers while Don Quixote stands among the people producing it.

His displeasure is unmistakable, but his response also articulates a standard for fiction and history. He argues that fiction gains charm by approaching truth or its appearance, while true stories are better the truer they are. The contrast is pointed: the counterfeit claims the authority of a continuation, while the novel insists that resemblance to the real and fidelity to truth are not the same thing. Don Quixote then leaves the press with displeasure showing on his face.

Print, Reputation, and the Novel’s Self-Reflection

The episode extends the novel’s play with its own public reception. Elsewhere in the Second Part, the characters discuss the earlier history’s popularity: the bachelor Samson Carrasco describes readers of different ages taking it up, pages sharing copies in noble households, and Rocinante becoming recognizable whenever people see a lean hack. The discussion also raises a criticism that the first history included an unrelated novella. Don Quixote objects that a history should tell the truth and requires judgment, while Samson’s account presents the book as widely read and enjoyed. Together, these moments make readership and criticism part of the fiction rather than leaving them outside it.

The printing-office visit sharpens that self-reference by showing competing books as physical objects in circulation. The First Part’s success had led to new editions and pirated editions, while the unauthorized sequel sought to occupy the same literary territory. In Barcelona, Don Quixote encounters that rivalry not through an abstract debate but through a corrected sheet on a printer’s case. The scene thus joins questions of authorship and literary merit to the everyday machinery of publication—and lets the character whose story is being appropriated register his objection within the story itself.