Sol!s, Antonio de

The history of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Done into English...by Thomas Townsend

      London:: Pr. for T. Woodward, & J. Hooke,, 1724.. Recent quarter calf, antique style: Round spine with raised bands accented with gilt rules and beading; gilt center devices; marbled paper sides. Ex-library copy with stamps. First few leaves crumpled in lower margins; last dozen leaves foxed, sometimes heavily. Lacks all plates and maps except one map - yet pleasing to the reader.. Tall folio. [9] ff., 163, [1 (blank)], 252, 152 pp. . Many editions of Sol!s's eminently readable history have come down the pike since the first appeared in Madrid in 1684. The present one is the first edition in English. Sol!s was an official court historian and as such had access not only to published sources but also to archival sources not previously used. Despite writing while the Baroque era flourished in Spain, his prose is remarkably unornamented or convoluted. This clarity of style when combined with the stirring and near-mythic events of the conquest of Mexico has accounted for the hundreds of editions that have come down to us.