The price
of don Quixote
by: Wonyoung Choi 2015-07-25
Recently I have
read "El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote del la Mancha" with great
amusement and amazement. So I know the value of the book, at least
subjectively. I got curious about the price of the book at Cervantes' time in
current US dollars.
The book starts
with a "Tasa" (meaning price), which seems to be the official price
of the book permitted by the authority. Thanks to this "Tasa", I
could know the official, if not the real, price of the book. The
"Tasa" declares the unit price, the quantity, and the book price (probably
retail price) as shown below. The book price is simply the multiplication of
the unit price and the quantity. This calculation is very interesting because
the authority deals with books as if they were some sort of food. The unit of
quantity 'pliego' is also interesting. As shown below, 1 'pliego' is almost
exactly 8 pages. It seems that the printing press printed 2 books at a time
(more probable) or 2 consecutive sheets of paper (less probable because more
difficult for binding). But I think that for practicality the authority counted
the number of sheets of paper of a book and divided it by 4 (because 1 sheet is
2 pages), which means that the book submitted to the authority for
"Tasa", approval, and copyright should be in physical form, bound or
unbound, not in manuscript. In the original print, Part I has about 12% more
pages than Part II, while modern versions generally are the opposite. The
Kindle version below does not have any footnote and therefore close to the
original. In the Kindle version, Part II is about 7% longer than the Part I. In terms of word count, Part II is about 5%
more. I could understand why only after I checked the original print, very
thankfully provided by the "Biblioteca Nacional de España"[1]
(BNE hereafter). Part I is a little denser: for example Part I has 32 lines per
page while Part II has 34, about 6% difference.
I found the
"Tasa" of "Pastores de Belen", published in 1614, by Lope
de Vega, Cervantes' rival. The discovery: same unit price. This is somewhat
disappointing not because the unit prices were the same for the two of them but
because (it seems that) all the books are given the same unit price. Then, the
price is basically the cost of printing.
The
"Tasa" itself is a nonsense. It is simply a price control, which can
be justified only for very standardized produces and products that are very
basic and essential for the living of people, and, furthermore, only in
emergency. The concept of unit price and quantity is just a logical consequence
of the price control. The pinnacle of this nonsense is the equal unit price. Cervantes
and Picasso are the same literally literarily. I feel very sad for Cervantes.
The then common practice of publishing sequels can be understood as one of the
result of this absurdity.
Unit
|
Part 1 (y.1605)
|
Part 2 (y.1615)
|
Changes
|
|
Unit price (A)
|
maravedí
|
3.5
|
4
|
+14%
|
Quantity (B)
|
pliego
|
83
|
73
|
-12%
|
Price (=AxB)
|
maravedí
|
290.5
|
292
|
n/a
|
Price: other denominations
|
real
escudo
|
8.54
0.53
|
8.59
0.54
|
n/a
|
Original print
|
page
|
668
|
586
|
-12%
|
Original print
|
page/pliego
|
8
|
8
|
nil
|
Kindle[2]
|
page
|
272
|
291
|
+7%
|
Project Gutenberg[3]
|
word
|
185,771
|
195,446
|
+5%
|
Now, my issue
turned from the price of don Quixote to that of books as a commodity. Less
interesting it is, but at least, I can use don Quixote as an example. First of
all, the second low of the table above shows that the unit price was 3.5 maravedís
in 1605 and 4 maravedís in 1615, 14% increase in ten years. It can mean the stability
of the price level and the purchasing power of money. Denominations to consider
are 'maravedí', 'real', 'ducado', and 'escudo'. 1 escudo was 16 reals and 1
real was 34 maravedís. 1 'ducado' is about 70% of 1 'escudo'. So, 292 maravedís
for Part II is 8.6 reals and a little more than 0.5 escudo.
According to Wikipedia[4],
in 1566 escudo was of 1 ounce of silver. Silver, however, is notorious for its
price volatility, for example USD4.11 in 2001 and USD46.47 in 2011 per ounce. (Gold
is not much better: USD257.44 in 2001 and USD1,837.68 in 2011 per ounce.) The price
of silver in early 17th century must have been much higher although dropping
very rapidly because of the massive influx of silver from the Americas. Anyway,
not a useful ruler.
The usual method
to compare the prices of the same thing between a very long period is to
compare the prices to buy something (silver or gold above is
one of such), or to estimate the quantity of labor (usually in man/month) to
do something (like building Parthenon).
4 pigs (sold) for
20 ducados (or less, Chapter. II-45): max 5 ducados / pig
(roughly USD300) →
3.5 escudos / USD300 → USD86 / escudo
20 ducados for a
(good) dress (to buy) (II-74): USD1,000-5,000 dress for 14 escudos → USD70-350
/ escudo
the butler gave
200 escudos to meet the necessities during the trip (II-57): considering the context,
I assume USD20,000 → USD143
/ escudo
A serious study
can surely and accurately determine the value of an escudo. My arbitrary and convenient
pick is USD100 for an escudo, so roughly USD100 for a complete don Quixote.
In 1989, don
Quixote (probably a complete set) was sold at USD1.5 million.[6]
End.
[5] Cervantes, Miguel de (2010). Don
Quijote de la Mancha. (Primera edición Vintage Español, marzo 2010,
Copyright de la introducción y edición © 2002 por Florencio Sevilla Arroyo)
Vintage Español, Nueva York. ISBN 978-0-307-47541-1
[6] "List
of most expensive books", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_books
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