Soledades de la vida y desengaños del mundo, novelas exemplares. by Lozano, Cristóbal - [1722]

Madrid: a costa de Francisco Medel, [1722]. 4to (21 cm; 8.25"). [4] ff., 378 [i.e., 376] pp.

Golden Age writer Cristobal Lozano (1609–67) was a priest, doctor in theology, commisar of the Holy Crusade and of the Holy Office, and a friend of Calderon de la Barca and of Juan Pérez de Montalbán. He left a goodly corpus that includes novels, poetry, and plays, all reflecting or studying in one degree or another the concerns of Counter-Reformation Spain. Themes include purity of blood, student life, and the status and roles of women in society.
    Soledades de la vida y desengaños del mundo was first published in Madrid in 1658 and was reprinted many times in the subsequent decades, attesting to its continued popularity during the "Edad de Oro." Essentially a miscellany, it is composed of two distinct parts, the Soledades and the Persecuciones de Lucina, dama valenciana, y tragicos sucessos de Don Carlos. The first is essentially a four-part pastoral novel about love and life while the second is an eight-part novel concerning a pair of young lovers whose parents oppose their friendship with the expected result of the youngsters running away together and having adventures and misadventures.
    Provenance: No individual's name appears, but the title-page is inscribed in an 18th-century hand with the name of a little town in southeast Puebla, Sto. Tomas Hueyotlipan.
    
    Not in Palau, but see 142879 for a related 1722 edition. Recent vellum, old style, with ties. Some gatherings washed; first leaf of text (only) defective with loss of three lines on each side; early leaves with good repairs of tears and irregular margins; signature "S" supplied from a different copy. Some leaves with creasing, some worming in foremargins, and one leaf with a foremarginal burnhole; otherwise, but the very occasional stain here or there. A pleasing copy.