History of the Conquest of Mexico With a Preliminary View of the Ancient Mexican Civilization, and The Life Of the Conqueror, Hernando Cortés. 3-vol. set (Complete)

Philadelphia: David McKay, 1892. Later edition. Hardcover. g+ to vg. Octavo (8 1/2 x 6"). 430pp (Vol. 1); 402pp (Vol. 2); 448pp (Vol. 3). Contemporary 3/4 calf over marbled paper covered boards, with gold lettering and tooling to spines. Marbled endpapers. Top edges gilt. Tissue-guarded frontispiece in each volume.

Originally published in 1843, this pioneering study presents a compelling view of the clash of civilizations that reverberates in Latin America to this day.

"Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the Conquest of Mexico is Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck.

"More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration. . . . Here, as nowhere else, has Prescott succeeded in delineating character. All the chief actors of his great historic drama not only live and breathe, but they are as distinctly differentiated as they must have been in life. Cortés and his lieutenants are persons whom we actually come to know in the pages of Prescott. . . . Over against these brilliant figures stands the melancholy form of Montezuma, around whom, even from the first, one feels gathering the darkness of his coming fate. He reminds one of some hero of Greek tragedy, doomed to destruction and intensely conscious of it, yet striving in vain against the decree of an inexorable destiny. . . . [Prescott] transmuted the acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure literature."

Minor shelf wear. Previous owner's Ex-libris on inside of each front cover. Bindings in overall good+ to very good, interior in very good condition.