Hispania Rare Books

£1800.00

Juan de Velasco (1727–1792)

Historia del Reino de Quito en la America Meridional, escrita por el presbitero Don Juan de Velasco, nativo del mismo Reino.  Tomo I, y Parte I que contiene La Historia Natural;  Tomo 2;  Tomo III y Parte III  que contiene la Historia Moderna.

Quito: Imprenta del Gobierno, por Juan Campuzano, 1844.

First Spanish edition, 3 vols, [bound in one]  4to (194 x 140mm) , vol1: pp iii+231+ii, vol 2: pp iii+210+i, vol 3: vii+252+iv; vellum.

It is very rare to find a complete example of this first Spanish-language edition of a seminal work in Latin American historiography. The Historia del Reino de Quito was written during Velasco’s exile in Italy, following the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spanish territories in 1767 and published posthumously, by the government of Ecuador, between 1841 and 1844. Velasco’s book was the first comprehensive attempt to write a history of what would become Ecuador. It covered geography, ethnography, and political history, making it an essential source for understanding colonial perceptions of indigenous societies. Juan de Velasco’s works reflect how history was written and used in the construction of national identity. The History of the Kingdom of Quito is an important and historically significant book.   Provenance: From the collection of Professor Malcolm Deas, (1941-2023), an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford.   Rarity:  Very rare on the  market, apart from this copy, I could find only one other example offered at Sotheby’s in 1999.

Condition: late vellum binding scuffed, foxing affecting mainly tittle  and final pages, toned, contemporary previous owner signature to title, small tear (5mm) to indices of vol 2, stain to head of page 1 vol 1, complete, good.