HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, WITH A PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE ANCIENT MEXICAN CIVILIZATION, AND THE LIFE OF THE CONQUERER, HERNANDO CORTÉS.

Prescott, William H.:

Published by New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843.

About this Item

First printing of the first American edition of Prescott's classic history, published a few months after the London edition. Born into a Brahmin family, William Hickling Prescott (1796 1859) grew up in Boston and attended Harvard before going on to establish himself as "America's premier romantic historian" (ANB). As a student at Harvard, Prescott had shown little scholastic promise, that is until his junior year when a piece of bread crust hurled by another student outside of Commons struck him in the left eye, leaving his vision permanently impaired. Thereafter, Prescott applied himself more diligently to his studies, graduating in 1814, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. About this time, however, Prescott suffered an acute bout of rheumatism in his right eye that continued to flare up periodically throughout his life, resulting in long periods of total vision loss. With his hopes of pursuing a legal career dashed, Prescott travelled to Europe, convalescing for a time at his grandfather's estate in the Azores. It was there that Prescott became interested in the history of Catholic Spain and its colonial empire, a subject that would eventually come to define his career as a "romantic historian" and "gentleman of letters" (Levin). Back in Boston, Prescott continued to pursue his interest in Spanish history with the help and encouragement of his friend and neighbor, the Harvard professor and scholar of Spanish literature, George Ticknor, making free use of Ticknor's vast library. Throughout his literary career, Prescott was aided by paid secretaries who read to him, amanuenses to whom he dictated his work, and a noctograph that enabled him to write with greater ease. Prescott's first published history, the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, appeared in 1837 to great critical acclaim, but it was his History of the Conquest of Mexico, published in 1843, that solidified Prescott's reputation and became his most popular work. Conceived of as "an epic in prose," the Conquest of Mexico - with its attention to literary style, moral drama, and narrative structure - in many ways exemplifies the kind of romantic history to which Prescott and his fellow historians, Bancroft, Motley, and Parkman, aspired. Taking inspiration from the historical novels popularized by the likes of Sir Walter Scott, romantic historians like Prescott sought to combine literary style and imaginative storytelling with rigorous historical scholarship. Writing in the preface to his History of the Conquest of Mexico, Prescott acknowledges that his chosen subject "has the air of romance rather than of sober history," but, "notwithstanding the seduction of the subject," Prescott insists that he has nevertheless "conscientiously endeavoured to distinguish fact from fiction, and to establish the narrative on as broad a basis as possible of contemporary evidence," having "taken occasion to corroborate the text by ample citations from authorities, usually in the original, since few of them can be very accessible to the reader." In his first contract outside his home city of Boston, Prescott negotiated the publication of 5000 copies of the first printing of his History of the Conquest of Mexico with Harper and Brothers from stereotype plates. It was published one volume at a time between December 6th and 21st, just a few months after the first edition in London. In what proved a savvy business decision - and an unusual one for American authors of this period it was the author, Prescott, rather than his publishers who financed the production of his book's plates. As the owner of the stereotype plates, Prescott was able to exercise a greater degree of control over the look and quality of his books and their production, thus avoiding the conflicts between author and publisher that so often plagued the business of literature in this period. Such copies of the author's books as these reflect what historian C. Harvey Gardiner describes as Prescott's "ceaseless quest for.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, WITH A PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE ANCIENT MEXICAN CIVILIZATION, AND THE LIFE OF THE CONQUERER, HERNANDO CORTÉS.
• Publisher: New York: Harper and Brothers, 1843.
• Edition: 1st Edition