Histoire de la conqueste du Mexique, ou de la Nouvelle Espagne, par Fernand Cortez, traduite de l'Espagnol de dom Antoine de Solis, par l'auteur du Triumvirat de [CORTEZ] SOLÍS Y RIBADENEYRA, Antonio de (1610-1686) - 1714

Paris: Par la Compagnie des Libraires, 1714. Complete in two duodecimo volumes. [34],537,[19]; [14],494,[18]pp, with 2 folding maps and 11 plates (10 if which folding, including ). Contemporary full tobacco-brown continental calf, ribbed spines in six compartments (two of which lettered in gilt), upper covers with gilt royal escutcheons (defaced), edges sprinkled red, plain period end papers, gold silk page-markers. WorldCat lists only five copies, all in the United States. A Fine unsophisticated set, in handsome bindings Sabin, generally clean and bright with excellent impressions of the plates. Alden 714/129. Palau 318678. Cox II, p. 239. Sabin 86477. Hill 1600 (for the first Madrid edition). Fourth Edition, translated into French from the first Spanish edition (Madrid, 1684) by Antonio de Solis, preceding by a decade the first English edition of 1724. Based on the letters of Cortés and the works of Francisco Lopez de Gomara and Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the Historia, covering the three years between the appointment of Cortés to command the invading force and the fall of the city of Mexico, remained the most important European source on Latin American history through the first part of the nineteenth century and "deservedly ranks as a Spanish prose classic." (Hill) "[U]ndoubtedly the most popular history of America that had then been written, [with] the number of editions published even up to the nineteenth century, in Spanish, French, Italian, English and German, testify[ing] to its popularity." (Cox) Illustrations include a map of Mexico; views of sailing ships, temples and battles, and two magnificent panoramas.