Las sergas de Esplandián

Las sergas de Esplandián
Author Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo
Country Spain
Language Spanish
Genre Chivalric romance
Published July 1510

Las Sergas de Esplandián (The Adventures of Esplandián) is the fifth book in a series of Spanish chivalric romance novels by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, which began with Amadís de Gaula. The first known edition of this work was published in Seville in July 1510. But there was another edition published prior, possibly in Seville in 1496, as the sixth book of the series, Florisando, appeared four months earlier, in April 1510. This work is cited by Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote, in particular it is included in the list of books in the library of Don Quixote.

Ruth Putnam argues that Montalvo finished his novel sometime after 1492[1] but before Queen Isabella died in 1504.[2]

Las Sergas mentions a fictional island named California,[3] inhabited only by black women, and ruled by Queen Calafia. When Spanish explorers (including Francisco de Ulloa) learned of an island (actually a peninsula) off western Mexico rumored to be ruled by Amazon women, they named it California.

Notes

  1. ↑ Putnam, Ruth (1917-12-19). Stephens, Henry Morse; Bolton, Herbert Eugene, eds. Herbert I. Priestley. "California: The Name". University of California Publications in History. 4 (4): 313–314. Retrieved 2014-07-14. It seems a fair inference that Montalvo did not complete his own story of Esplandian's victories until after Columbus came back from his first voyage. Even if it appeared originally in 1496, the author would have had time to incorporate a fresh incident into his nearly finished 'copy.'
  2. ↑ Putnam, Ruth (1917-12-19). Stephens, Henry Morse; Bolton, Herbert Eugene, eds. Herbert I. Priestley. "California: The Name". University of California Publications in History. 4 (4): 305. Retrieved 2014-07-14. The date [of Las sergas de Esplandián] is not fixed, but it was certainly before 1504 that it was completed. In his prologue, the author refers to the Catholic Sovereigns in a way to show that they were both still in life, and Isabella died in 1504.
  3. ↑ Rodríguez de Montalvo, Garci (1526) [1496]. Las sergas de Esplandián [The Adventures of Esplandián] (in Spanish). Sabed que ala diestra mano de las Indias ouo una Isla llamada California mucho llegada ala parte del paraiso terrenal la qual sue poblada de mugeres negras sin que algun uaro entre ellas ouiesse: que casi como las amazonas … (The first mention of "California" occurs on the unnumbered page after page CVIII, in the right column.)
  • Las Sergas de Esplandián (1526) (Spanish) Original from Library of Catalonia, digitized 2009.
  • Edward Everett Hale (1885) "The Queen of California" in His Level Best: And Other Stories. (Google eBook) Translation from the Sergas of Esplandian of every passage relating to the imagined island of California. Reprinted in part from an unsigned article in the Atlantic Monthly for March 1864.
  • "More Books from the Sixteenth Century Printed in Seville by the Cromberger Dynasty". doi:10.1080/14753820.2013.802588#preview (inactive 2018-09-22).


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