Despite Bowle's numerous complaints of unjustified attacks by his
contemporaries, the scholarly impact of his edition on other editors--both
in England and Spain--was considerable. Pellicer, for instance, belittles
Bowles' contribution to an understanding of Cervantes' novel, while
admitting that he incorporated many of Bowles' notes and annotations in
his own version. Interest in scholarly editions of Don Quixote began to
wane as more translations of the novel appeared. And it was primarily the
English version of Don Quixote that
introduced Cervantes' masterpiece into
the mainstream of English prose fiction. Henry Fielding would be the most
famous beneficiary of this development. The "ENGLISH CERVANTES,"
as he
would be called by many of his contemporaries, modeled his "new
species of
writing" ( Joseph Andrews, 1742) on the English translation of
Don Quixote.
