The Happy Captive

(London: The Folio Society, 1977). Translated from the Spanish by William C Atkinson. Vinyl-cuts by John Lawrence. 8vo; original leatherette-backed cloth, with horseman device to upper cover, and spine lettered in gilt; papered slipcase; tinted top edge; endpaper maps; pp. 154; vinyl-cuts in text. Slipcase very slightly rubbed; trace of spotting to fore-edge. Near fine condition. An early account of experiences with the most formidable of South America's Indian tribes, the Araucanians of Chile. Written in the 1600s, the book was not printed until 1863, when an edition appeared in Santiago. "But the detail of his day-to-day experiences in captivity does imply remarkable powers of recall; he had been born and grown up not far from the frontier, in daily contact with the many Indians held by and serving the white man; he had had nine years' schooling with the Jesuits in Concepción, with Arauco just across the river. At the time he was taken prisoner he could claim 'a reasonable understanding of their common speech', and this, the medium of all his dealings with his captors, among whom he lived and moved freely as one of the family, he obviously soon mastered. His esteem for the Araucanians is thus something far removed from a contrived admiration born largely of shock at Spanish shortcomings. Its genuineness impresses the reader as it impressed the native chiefs, several of whom greatly desired him as a son-in-law; and indeed, had it not been for the thought of his aged and ailing father, whose own military record and reputation lay behind the governor's eventual readiness to release two Indian chiefs in exchange for the son, he could happily have cast his lot in with them for good." .