PRESCOTT, William H.

[Works] History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; History of the Conquest of Peru; History of the Conquest of Mexico; Biographical and Critical Miscellanies; History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth; History of the Reign of Philip the Second; Life of William Hickling Prescott

New York & Boston: Harper & Brothers - Phillips, Sampson and Company - Ticknor and Fields, 1854. Item #06705

The Standard Nineteenth-Century Edition of Prescott's Historical Works
Handsomely Bound in Three-Quarter Brown Morocco

PRESCOTT, William H. [Works]. History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella; History of the Conquest of Peru;
History of the Conquest of Mexico; Biographical and Critical Miscellanies; History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth;
History of the Reign of Philip the Second; Life of William Hickling Prescott. New York & Boston: Harper & Brothers - Phillips, Sampson and Company - Ticknor and Fields, 1854-1864.

Sixteen octavo volumes (8 15/16 x 5 7/8 inches; 227 x 150 mm.). Each volume with an engraved portrait frontispiece.

Handsomely bound circa 1900 in three-quarter brown morocco over marbled boards ruled in gilt. Spines with five raised bands, compartments decoratively ruled and lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. A handsome and well-preserved set.

A substantial collection of the principal historical writings of William Hickling Prescott (1796–1859), the most celebrated American historian of the nineteenth century and one of the foremost chroniclers of Spain and the Spanish Empire. Despite suffering from severe visual impairment for much of his adult life, Prescott produced a series of monumental historical studies distinguished by their literary elegance, meticulous scholarship, and unprecedented use of Spanish archival sources.

Prescott's reputation rests chiefly upon his great trilogy of Spanish imperial history - History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, History of the Conquest of Mexico, and History of the Conquest of Peru - works that introduced generations of English-speaking readers to the dramatic history of Spain's rise to global power and its encounters with the civilizations of the New World. His vivid portraits of figures such as Ferdinand and Isabella, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and Philip II helped establish the modern narrative tradition of historical writing in America.

The present collection contains all of Prescott's major historical works together with his essays and the authoritative contemporary biography by his close friend George Ticknor, providing a comprehensive representation of one of the nineteenth century's most influential literary historians.

Contents:
History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic (1854). Three volumes. Third edition.
History of the Conquest of Peru, with a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas (1855). Two volumes.
History of the Conquest of Mexico, with a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and the Life of the Conqueror Hernando Cortés (1855). Three volumes. Twenty-second edition.
Biographical and Critical Miscellanies (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1856). New edition.
History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth, by William Robertson, with Prescott's account of the Emperor's life after his abdication (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1857). Three volumes.
History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1859). Three volumes. Thirteenth Thousand.
Life of William Hickling Prescott, by George Ticknor (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864).

A handsome turn-of-the-century morocco-bound set of Prescott's historical masterpieces, works that helped establish American historical scholarship on an international footing and remain classics of nineteenth-century narrative history.

Price: $1,650.00