I would like to insist, as I have already several times (see «Un barbarismo: "libros de caballería"», Thesaurus, 30 [1975], 340-41, and «More on libros de caballería and libros de caballerías», La Corónica, 5, No. 2 [Spring, 1977], 116-18), the only correct Spanish term to designate these books is «libros de caballerías», in the plural, and not «libros de caballería» nor much less «novelas de caballería». It is true that these works were novels, in the sense in which that word is used today, but to use this term overemphasizes their fictional nature, ignoring the acceptance of them by some contemporary readers as seemingly historical works; certainly the juggling of terms indulged in by Armando Durán (Estructura y técnica de la novela sentimental y caballeresca [Madrid: Gredos, 1973], pp. 176-78) in order to make the genres adapt to his conclusions, is superfluous. (See my review of Durán's book in HR, 43 [1975], 425-29, and those of Keith Whinnom, BHS, 53 [1976], 61-62 and Charlotte Stern, RPh, 33 [1 9801, 600-03). We have in the term «libros de caballerías» something which is not so commonly found: a precise and clear expression, authorized by the authors of the very works in question. Let us use it.
On the book-collecting activities of the Marqués de Salamanca, see Isidro Bonsoms y Sicart, Discursos leídos en la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona en la recepción pública de D. Isidro Bonsoms y Sicart (Barcelona, 1907), and Homero Serís, «La reaparición del Tirant lo Blanch de Barcelona de 1497», Homenaje a Menéndez Pidal (Madrid: Hernando, 1925), III, 57-76.
As, for example, the two bibliographical expositions held to celebrate the fourth centenary of the birth of Cervantes (Madrid, 1947 and 1948), the Cervantes, lector exposition (Madrid, 1976), and innumerable others.
I believe, however, that what appears to be praise for one of these books is not such. See «Pero Pérez the Priest and His Comment on Tirant lo Blanch», included in this volume.
I have commented briefly on the popularity of the Quijote in «Dígalo Portugal, Barcelona y Valencia: Una nota sobre la popularidad del Quijote», Hispanófila, N.º 52 (1974), 71-72. See also Keith Whinnom, «The Problem of the "Best-Seller" in Spanish Golden-Age Literature», BHS, 57 (1980), 189-98.
Most recently the subject of speculation by Alban Forcione, Cervantes, Aristotle, and the Persiles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 169.
Protagonist of the Espejo de príncipes y cavalleros, which I have edited in Volumes 193-98 of the Clásicos Castellanos series (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1975). Ballads about the Caballero del Febo and about Amadís were published by Lucas Rodríguez in his Romancero historiado, ed. Antonio Rodríguez-Moñino (Madrid: Castalia, 1967), pp. 168-88.
On this term see Alan Deyermond, «The Lost Genre of Medieval Spanish Literature», HR, 43 (1975), 231-59, and Miguel Garci-Gómez, «Romance según los textos españoles del Medioevo y Prerrenacimiento», JMRS, 4 (1974), 35-62. The confusion concerning the word «romance» has led to errors on the part of scholars who should very well have known better: see the items included under the heading «Spanish Novels and Romances» in Fernand Baldensperger and W. P. Friedrich's Bibliography of Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina Studies in Comparative Literature, [1] (Chapel Hill, 1950), p. 454; Edward Glaser confused «romances caballerescos» with «libros de caballerías» in his «Nuevos datos sobre la crítica de los libros de caballerías en los siglos XVI y XVII», AEM, 3 (1966), 393-410.
Repertorio Americano, 4 (1827), 63-64.