On official Consulate stationery.

•  Very good condition. Private ownership stamp. Glue and paper adhering along top margin, as from mounting.

The poem was left unpublished at the time of the author’s death and Francisco Garabito de León Messía saw to its publication.

•  Palau 347681; Medina, BHA, 1806; European Americana 687/140; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VIII, 376–77. Recased in old vellum. A very good copy.

•  Creased, with short tears along two folds; corners with small pieces of tape attached.

•  Not in Palau. Modern light wrappers, lacking original wrappers; some stains and exseminary library with stamp on title-page.

Bolívar had strong ideas about what the nature of the constitution should be, and he expressed them forcefully to congress as it worked on the constitution, but in the end, the legislators went their own way. Two years later, because Bolívar had freed Colombia and much of Ecuador, Venezuela merged with those two regions to form the free nation of Grand Colombia, being the former territory of the Viceroyalty of New Granada.

Searches of the standard library databases fail to find any copy of this important publication held by any U.S. library. Bolívar himself imported the press on which this outstanding document was printed, obtaining it in Trinidad. The man in charge of the press was Andrew Roderick, almost certainly an Englishman, but at least one source labels him Belgian, which seems most unlikely.

•  Not in Palau; not in Medina, Imprenta en algunas ciudades de la América Española. In modern wrappers. A very clean and crisp copy of a certifiable rarity.

Click the image for an enlargement.

This document dates from immediately after July 5th, as internal evidence shows. Here the Junta Suprema explains what it sees to be the political reality of Spain’s dissolution into non-nationhood under Napoleon and thereby justifies “Venezuela [having] entered now, Americanos, into the number of free nations of the Americas.”

Very Rare. This broadside was unknown to Medina. Grases located only the copies in the Public Record Office (London) and the Archivo de Indias (Seville). Searches of NUC, OCLC, and RLIN fail to find any copy at all. Further, no copies were found when searching the OPACs of the national libraries of Venezuela, Colombia, Spain, France, and England.

•  Not in Medina, Caracas; not in Villasana. Grases, Historia de la imprenta en Venezuela, Repertorio #72. As issued. Worming in foremargin; repaired. Pencilling in margins. A very good copy.

•  In modern wrappers, preserving the original front printed wrapper.

In this work printed in Philadelphia, Vidaurre calls for republican reforms in Peru. This was a major change of political stance for him, for he had loyally served the crown in both his native Peru and, after the commencement of the Wars of Independence, in Spain. His attack on the Spanish political system and call for liberal republican reforms involves passionate denunciation of slavery, and his "renuncia" (pp. 197–225) speaks at length about Cuba's current socio-political conditions and explains why Cuba should follow the lead of the former Spanish colonies of the American mainland.

On the basis of this work, which is dedicated to Simón Bolívar, The Liberator appointed Vidaurre head of the supreme court at Trujillo.

•  Sabin 99491; Shaw & Shoemaker 14780. On Vidaurre, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 1012, frames 251–256 & 261–262. Modern quarter green morocco and marbled paper sides. Foxing, some staining. Complete with the errata leaf, and solid.

The corregidor seeks the delay knowing that the residencia judge will be his successor and that traditionally residencia judges were lenient: They tended to use the standard investigation and trial as means of learning new scams, singling out troublesome citizens from meek ones and the corruptible from the honest, and so on.

•  On Villaviciencio Torres, see: Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana, V, 4432. Now housed in a quarter cloth (faux leather) folder with marbled paper sides. Sewing holes in inner margins, fore-edges a little tattered and dog-eared; in sound and useable condition.

an oversized folding map and fourteen engraved plates

Married set: The two contemporary bindings are similar but not identical; both are of mottled leather, one more coarsely grained (and acid-etched) than the other, while one has floral and the other pomegranate motifs gilt-stamped in spine compartments. The match was made by a previous, Spanish-speaking collector, who has left pencilled notes in Spanish in both volumes.

•  Sabin 106261; Palau 379641. Contemporary mottled sheep and calf as above, corners and edges worn, all joints cracking, both volumes with minor worming to front covers and pinholes to spines; vol. I with loss of leather over spine head (half of top compartment). Pencilled check marks scattered throughout; front free endpaper and recto of last text page of vol. II with annotations.

•  Sabin 106266; Palau 379645. Volumes bound in paper wrappers, back wrapper lacking in both cases; front wrappers reinforced with printed papers taken from other items. Reverse of frontispiece in vol. I and front pastedown in vol. II with small bookplates of private collector. Edges untrimmed. Scattered spots; pages and plates generally in good clean condition.