SOLÍS Y RIBADENEYRA, Antonio de.

The history of the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards. Done into English from the original Spanish of Don Antonio de Solis, secretary and historiographer to his Catholick majesty. By Thomas Townsend.

      London, T. Woodward, J. Hooke & J. Peele, 1724. - Folio (355 x 235 mm), pp. [xviii], 163, 252, 152, with a portrait-frontispiece of Cortés (after Titian), six plates (one double-page and one folding) and two maps; occasional dust-spotting; contemporary calf; abrasion on front cover, joints cracked but strong. First English edition. Immensely popular, both in Spain and abroad, Solís’s history ‘used the letters of Cortés and the narratives of Díaz del Castillo and López de Gómara, amongst others, but the end result was not the most accurate account of the conquest of Mexico. Solís portrayed the Cortés/Moctezuma struggle with dramatic licence and adopted the viewpoint of the militant anti-Indian school of López de Gómara and Oviedo y Valdés. The resulting English translation was produced in a large folio volume illustrated with elegant engravings. It was offered on subscription from October 1723 onwards and the list of its subscribers . . . reflected [an] affluent sector of the reading community’ (Steele p. 135). The Spanish original appeared in 1684.Alden 724/165; Hill 1601; Palau 318693; Sabin 86487; Steele 38.