(b) "A few days before the publication of Galatea, Cervantes was married at Esquivias.... The 12th of December, 1584, was the date of the ceremony." (p. 90).
(c) "Cervantes married his wife in December, 1584, and for reasons which will be manifest to those who have read the story of his life I think we may presume that his first book was printed before that date." (p. 257).
(d) "The Galatea, Cervantes' first book ... was approved for publication on the 1st of February, 1584, but, for some reason not explained, it was not published till the beginning of the year following." (p. 87).
(e) "Salvá maintains it (i.e. the Alcalá edition of 1585) to be the editio princeps, but I agree with Asensio and the older critics in believing that there must have been an edition of 1584." (p. 257).
(f) "Navarrete and Ticknor, following all the older authorities, make the place of publication Madrid and the date 1584. But Salvá has proved in his Bibliography that the Galatea was first published at Alcalá, the author's birthplace, at the beginning of 1585." (p. 87 n. 3).
These sentences do not appear to convey a strictly consistent view: (b) contradicts (c), (c) contradicts (d), (d) contradicts (e), and (e) contradicts (f).
As to (b) and (d), the expressions "a few days" and "the beginning of the new year" should evidently be interpreted in a non-natural sense. The Tasa, as we have seen, was not signed at Madrid till March 13, 1585; the next step was to return the printed sheets to the publisher at Alcalá de Henares; the publisher had then to forward the Tasa to the printer, and finally the whole edition had to be bound. In these circumstances, the date of publication cannot easily be placed earlier than April, 1585. Accordingly, the expression (b)—"a few days"—must be taken to mean about ninety or a hundred days: and "the beginning of the year," mentioned under (d), must be advanced from January to April.
Concerning (e), it is true that Sr. Asensio y Toledo was at one time inclined to believe in the existence of a 1584 edition of the Galatea: see Salvá, op. cit., vol ii, p. 124. But Sr. Asensio y Toledo admitted that Salvá's argument had shaken him: "sus observaciones de V. me han hecho parar un poco." This was over thirty years ago. Meanwhile, Sr. Asensio y Toledo has revised his opinion, as may be seen in his latest publication, Cervantes y sus obras (Barcelona. 1902). "En el año 1585 salió á luz La Galatea" (p. 268).... "El libro se imprimió en Alcalá, por Juan Gracián, y es de la más extremada rareza" (pp. 382-383). He now accepts Salvá's view without reserve.
As to (f), I have searched Navarrete's five hundred and eighty pages and Ticknor's one thousand six hundred and ninety-seven pages, but have been unable to find that either of them gives Madrid as the place of publication. An exact reference to authorities is always advisable.
[23] See the Life of Miguel de Cervantes by Henry Edward Watts (London, 1891), p. 117.