History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H. Prescott - Likely 1890: with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization and the Life of the Conqueror Hernando Cortes

New York: The Hovendon Co. (Undated, but likely the 1890 edition). Two-volume set with blue cloth boards, gilt titles in gilt decorative border on spines. The set wasn't issued with dust jackets. Previous owner's name stamped on ffep and top edge of each book; also gift inscription from 1901 written on the ffep. Text is clean and unmarked. Pages and endpapers are age toned. Overall, this is a handsome set of books. Bindings are square and tight. Vol. I has a bit of waffling along the fore edge of the back cover, along with a small area of discoloration (see our photo). Vol. II has a number of pages with small closed tears on the fore edge where the original owner separated pages that were uncut (see our photos).

ABOUT THE BOOK: "It is a magnificent epic," said William H. Prescott after the publication of History of the Conquest of Mexico in 1843. Since then, his sweeping account of Cortés's subjugation of the Aztec people has endured as a landmark work of scholarship and dramatic storytelling. This pioneering study presents a compelling view of the clash of civilizations that reverberates in Latin America to this day. "Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the Conquest of Mexico is Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck. "More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration. . . . Here, as nowhere else, has Prescott succeeded in delineating character. All the chief actors of his great historic drama not only live and breathe, but they are as distinctly differentiated as they must have been in life. Cortés and his lieutenants are persons whom we actually come to know in the pages of Prescott. . . . Over against these brilliant figures stands the melancholy form of Montezuma, around whom, even from the first, one feels gathering the darkness of his coming fate. He reminds one of some hero of Greek tragedy, doomed to destruction and intensely conscious of it, yet striving in vain against the decree of an inexorable destiny. . . . [Prescott] transmuted the acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure literature." William H. Prescott was a United States historian. He graduated from Harvard University in 1814 but was prevented by poor health and eyesight from a career in law or business. His friends, including Washington Irving, led him to his life's work: recounting the history of 16th-century Spain and its colonies.