Lopes de Castanheda, Fernao:

$55,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

THE FIRST BOOKE OF THE HISTORIE OF THE DISCOVERIE AND CONQUEST OF THE EAST INDIAS, ENTERPRISED BY THE PORTINGALES, IN THEIR DAUNGEROUS NAVIGATIONS.... The first English edition of one of the most important historical works of the first great age of discovery, translating the first book of Castanheda's work, originally published in Coimbra in 1551. Translated by Nicholas Lichefield, this edition is appropriately dedicated to Sir Francis Drake. Most of the Historie is devoted to the great Portuguese thrust into Asia in the early 16th century, chronicling their epic expansion to India, the East Indies, and China between 1497 and 1525. Castanheda himself spent some two decades in the Portuguese colonies in the East and so was well equipped to write this account. It is one of the primary sources for the early Portuguese trading empire, a model that the British were beginning to emulate at the time of publication. Penrose says of the author, "he wrote an impartial book of outspoken sincerity which was the fruit of years of residence in the East."This work is equally important for its American content, being the first to describe in detail the voyage of Cabral and his discovery of Brazil in 1500 while on his way to the East Indies. Pedro Àlvares Cabral was sent to India in 1500 on the heels of Vasco de Gama, and his journey resulted in the first recorded landfall in Brazil, recounted in chapters 29-31 of the present work. This copy quite appropriately comes from the library of the E

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.