HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU: With a Preliminary View of the Civilization of the Incas

London: Richard Bentley, 1847. 2 volumes. First Edition. With two full-page engraved frontispieces and a page showing the signatures of Francisco Pizarro, coat of arms of Pizarro granted by the Emperor Charles V in gilt at the spine panels of each volume. Tall 8vo, bound in the publisher's original brown cloth, the covers with all-over arabesque designs blocked in blind, the spine blocked in blind and lettered and decorated in gilt. xxxvi, 480; xx, 490, [1] pp. A very handsome set, internally very fresh and clean and crisp, partially unopened, the bindings quite well preserved without chipping or loss to the cloth, mellowed by age, and with a bit of mottling as to be expected, still a very handsome set and scarce in the original cloth. FIRST EDITION, SCARCE IN THE ORIGINAL CLOTH AND A HANDSOME PRINTING OF THIS LANDMARK WORK ON THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAS. After favorable reception of his first books, THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC and THE HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, Prescott set out to print the history of the Spanish conquest of the Incas in Peru. The Incas had established a refined social polity, and had made considerable progress in the arts of civilization. Their contact with the devastatingly powerful empire of Spain is one of the most epic confrontations in the annals of human history. Prescott’s rendering of the story has always been considered one of the great historical works on the Spanish in America.
Despite the fact that Prescott was blinded in one eye in his childhood, he was determined early on to embark upon a literary career. He went to Europe for two years at the age of nineteen to get the background for historical writing, and wrote a few miscellaneous essays on Spanish history. His first real success was his HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC, and this success encouraged him to begin research in 1839 on THE HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. It was published four years later, and in four months it had sold 5,000 copies. It was followed by 25 more editions by 1856, becoming one of the masterpieces of historical narration. THE HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF PERU is its partner set and is considered along with ‘MEXICO’ to be one of the great works in American historiography.
Part of Prescott’s appeal was in his writing style which recounted history in grand terms: “This work, in an almost neglected field, has come to be considered his greatest triumph, not only because of his historical accuracy, but because of its epic sweep, which, following in the vein of Scott, arranged itself around the two heroic figures of Cortes and Montezuma to create a dramatic tragedy.” This is a highly readable and important historical work.