Selections from the Fox Pointe Manor Library

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Lot 1
  • 1

Acosta, Jose de

Estimate
8,000 - 12,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • The naturall and morall historie of the East and West Indies. Intreating of the remarkeable things of heaven, of the elements, mettalls, plants and beasts which are proper to that country: together with the manners, ceremonies, lawes, governements, and warres of the Indians. Written in Spanish by the R.F. Ioseph Acosta, and translated into English by E.G. London: by Val: Sims for Edward Blount and William Aspley, 1604
  • paper, ink, leather
4to (185 x 135 mm). Minor staining, last leaf repaired, lacks final blank, a few headlines shaved, title and last leaves with contemporary marginalia.  Olive calf gilt, by Leighton.

Provenance

Seventeenth-century signatures of G. Chudleigh and Mary Chudleigh — John Fleming (Christie's New York, 18 November, 1988, lot 1)

Literature

STC 94; Sabin 131; Church 328; Palau 1996

Catalogue Note

First English edition, the Fleming copy, of a translation attributed to Edward Grimeston, of the Spanish Jesuit Acosta's Historia natural y moral de las Indias (originally published as De natura novi orbis in 1588). The work revealed the extent of the huge wealth that Spain was drawing from the New World.