Prescott, William H.:

$1,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, WITH A PRELIMINARY VIEW OF THE ANCIENT MEXICAN CIVILIZATION, AND THE LIFE OF THE CONQUERER, HERNANDO CORTÉS. First printing of the first American edition of Prescott's classic history, published a few months after the London edition. Born into a Brahmin family, William Hickling Prescott (1796–1859) grew up in Boston and attended Harvard before going on to establish himself as "America's premier romantic historian" (ANB). As a student at Harvard, Prescott had shown little scholastic promise, that is until his junior year when a piece of bread crust hurled by another student outside of Commons struck him in the left eye, leaving his vision permanently impaired. Thereafter, Prescott applied himself more diligently to his studies, graduating in 1814, a member of Phi Beta Kappa. About this time, however, Prescott suffered an acute bout of rheumatism in his right eye that continued to flare up periodically throughout his life, resulting in long periods of total vision loss. With his hopes of pursuing a legal career dashed, Prescott travelled to Europe, convalescing for a time at his grandfather's estate in the Azores. It was there that Prescott became interested in the history of Catholic Spain and its colonial empire, a subject that would eventually come to define his career as a "romantic historian" and "gentleman of letters" (Levin). Back in Boston, Prescott continued to pursue his interest in Spanish history with the help and encouragement of

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