HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO
By William H. Prescott
Introduction by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
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London, England: The Folio Society, 1994.
Thick 8vo / Hardcover w/slipcase / 723 pp / Illustrated / Clean and tight / Minor wear overall /
Nicely designed Folio Society edition. Title continues, "With a preliminary view of the Ancient Mexican Civilization and the life of the Conqueror Hernando Cortes."
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William Hickling Prescott (May 4, 1796 – January 28, 1859) was an American historian and Hispanist, who is widely recognized byhistoriographers to have been the first American scientific historian. Despite suffering from serious visual impairment, which at times prevented him from reading or writing for himself, Prescott became one of the most eminent historians of 19th century America. He is also noted for his eidetic memory.
After an extensive period of study, during which he sporadically contributed to academic journals, Prescott specialized in late Renaissance Spain and the early Spanish Empire. His works on the subject, The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (1837), The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), A History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) and the unfinished History of the Reign of Phillip II (1856–1858) have become classic works in the field, and have had a great impact on the study of both Spain and Mesoamerica. During his lifetime, he was upheld as one of the greatest living American intellectuals, and knew personally many of the leading political figures of the day, in both the United States and Britain. Prescott has become one of the most widely translated American historians, and was an important figure in the development of history as a rigorous academic discipline.[3][4]Historians admire Prescott for his exhaustive, careful, and systematic use of archives, his accurate recreation of sequences of events, his balanced judgments and his lively writing style. He was primarily focused on political and military affairs, largely ignoring economic, social, intellectual, and cultural forces that in recent decades historians have focused on. Instead, he wrote narrative history, subsuming unstated causal forces in his driving storyline.[5]
The Conquest of Mexico[edit]
Prescott expressed interest in his correspondence in writing a biography of Molière, and Ticknor records that he sent Prescott "a collection of about 50 volumes" of relevant material.[56] However, after writing to Ángel Calderón de la Barca, a Spanish minister living in Mexico, who was able to provide source material, Prescott started research on what was to become the History of the Conquest of Mexico.[57] He extensively read the works of Wilhelm von Humboldt, who had written on Mesoamerica, and started corresponding with the historian Washington Irving, the Swiss writer Sismondi and the French historian Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry.[58][59] He also received assistance in collecting sources from a college friend, Middleton, and a Dr. Lembke. In contrast to the lengthy time spent researching the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Prescott started drafting the History of the Conquest of Mexico in October 1839. However, Prescott faced difficulties in writing the work which he had not encountered previously. There was relatively little scholarship on Aztec civilization, and Prescott dismissed much of it as "speculation", and he therefore had to rely almost exclusively on primary sources (with the exception of Humboldt). In particular, he considered Edward King's theory that the pre-Columbian civilizations were non-indigenous to be fallacious, although he was greatly indebted to him for his anthology of Aztec codices in the Antiquities of Mexico.[60] Prescott also studied Spanish writers contemporary to the conquest, most significantly Torquemada and Toribio de Benavente.[61]
Prescott received three honorary degrees in this period—an honorary doctorate in laws from Columbia University in autumn 1840, theCollege of William and Mary in July 1841 and South Carolina College in December 1841.[62] He also helped Frances Inglis find a publisher for her autobiographical work Life in Mexico.[63] Moreover, Frances Inglis was one of Prescott's most valuable correspondents during the writing of the "History of the Conquest of Mexico." She is cited by Prescott five times throughout the text, and is described by him as, "one of the most delightful of modern traveller's."[64]
Prescott found it difficult to evaluate Mesoamerican scientific and mathematical achievements, because of his relative ignorance of those subjects.[55][65] While working in Boston in 1841, he met George Howard, who was to stay a close friend for the remainder of his life. Prescott worked industriously throughout 1840–1842, and as a result, the work was finished by August 1843. It was published by Harper & Brothers, New York in December, Bentley issuing the British edition.[66] His elderly father had suffered a stroke in October, which resulted in temporary paralysis, so Prescott spent most of the winter attending him in Pepperell. The History of the Conquest of Mexico was received extremely well, both critically and by the general public, despite Prescott's fears to the contrary.[67] Those praising the work included George Hillard in the North American Review, George Ticknor Curtis in the Christian Examiner, Joseph Cogswell in the Methodist Quarterly, as well as the Dean of St. Paul's, Henry Hart Milman.[68]
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