Lot 19 of 107:
Publisher's copy of Columbus' Book of Privileges  

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Lot closed - unsold
Estimate:
$2,000 - $3,000

Title:
Christopher Columbus His Own Book of Privileges 1502: Photographic Facsimile of the Manuscript in the Archives of the Foreign Office in Paris, now for the first time published, with expanded text translation into English

Author:
Stevens, Benjamin Franklin, compiler & editor

Place:
London

Publisher:
B.F. Stevens

Date:
1892

Description:

lxvi, 284 pp. Transliteration and translation by George F. Barwick. Introduction by Henry Harrise. Preface by B.F. Stevens. Chromolithograph frontispiece of the arms of Christopher Columbus. 35x21.5 cm (13¾x8½"), original half morocco & wooden boards with brass anchor clasps, hand-inked paper spine label, raised bands.

The editor/publisher's own copy, the first to be bound, of this elaborate presentation of The Book of Privileges (in Spanish, El Libro de los Privilegios), written by Christopher Columbus and completed in 1502, shortly before Columbus's fourth and final voyage to the Americas. The book details and documents the favors which Columbus believed were owed to him and to his heirs by the Spanish crown, as rewards for what he believed was the successful discovery of a new route to the East Indies, as well as the conquest and Christianization of new lands brought under the dominion of Spain. The publication of the book was followed by protracted legal battles between Columbus's family and the Spanish crown, known as the pleitos colombinos. In the present publication, the facsimile pages face the text printed in modern Spanish surrounded by an English translation. This copy with ink inscription on the front free endpaper, "To Myself, B.F. Stevens, 19 Febry. 1894. The first bound copy"; and below that "19 May, published this day, B.F.S."  Handsomely produced -- with elegant typography, strong untrimmed paper, and custom wood- and-leather binding –  the present work is the finest private press celebration of Columbus, and this is the # 1 copy of the book.


Lot Amendments

Condition:
Some shelf wear and rubbing to joints; slight darkening to the untrimmed page edges (from the wooden boards); front hinge gently cracked at endpapers; binding firm; a most desirable copy.


 
Item number:
348031
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