Diary of the Alarcón Expedition into Texas, 1718-1719 by Celiz, Francisco signed by the translator Fritz Leo Hoffmann - 1935

[xii]+1-110+[2]+[1-52 facsimile manuscript]+111-124 pages with frontispiece, 7 additional plates, 2 maps (1 folding), facsimiles and index. Quarto (10 1/4" x 6 3/4") bound in original publisher's quarter white cloth with gilt lettering to spine over brown boards with Quivira Societies gilt stamp to front cover. Signed by the translator, Fritz Leo Hoffmann. Quivira Society Publications, volume V. Copy 96 of 100 copies of the special facsimile issue. [Howes C254; Jenkins 29; Rader 643]. First edition into English.

When in January, 1933, the diary of the Alarcon expedition into Texas and Louisiana was found in the Archivo General de la Nacion by Luis Ceballos and Maria Viamonte, paleographers in the archives, it was not until the document was shown to the noted Mexican historian and scholar, ingeniero Vito Alessio Robles, that its full importance came to be known. Robles, being an authority on the early history of northern Mexico and Texas, immediately had several transcript copies made of the manuscript, one of which he gave to Fritz Hoffmann with the suggestion that he translate the document and have it published with notes. The diary, lost for more than two centuries, had been misplaced in an expediente entitled Medidas de Tierras efectuadas en las Misiones de San Bernardino de la Candela y Santiago de Valladares, 1718 (Survey of the Lands effected at Missions of San Bernardino de la Candela and Santiago de Valadares, 1718), at the end of volume 360 of the section of the archives known as Tierras. In the meantime Robles had published the original Spanish text, without notes, in the review, La Universidad de Mexico, Tomo V, numbers 25-28. The original manuscript consists of twenty-six sheets, written on both sides in a small hand by the chaplain of the expedition, Fray Francisco Celiz, a priest of the mission of El Dulcisimo Nombre de Jesus de Peyotes in Coahuila. The document carries no title. Alarcon's son, Francisco de Alarcon, in a letter written July 19, 1719, attached to the diary, calls it El Diario de la conqauista y entrada a los Thejas (The Diary of the conquest and entry to the Thejas).

Condition:

Corners and spine ends bumped, unread else a very good copy with the original cellophane jacket which is chipped at spine.