Rare: not in any of the standard bibliographies and not traced via OCLC, RLIN, etc.

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 1350 for 1737 and later editions, but not this one. Not in Medina, Mexico; not in González de Cossío, Cien; not in González de Cossío, 510. Removed from a nonce volume. Very good condition

•  Palau 83643; Medina, La Imprenta en Mexico 7541. 20th-century vellum over cardboard. Covers sprung with a few stains and, on the front, a small wormhole. Small round wormholes throughout, resulting in loss of bits of engraving and loss of parts of letters. Frontispiece with light waterstaining. Some leaves reinforced in the gutters. Paper generally white with a few smaller stains in the margins. Inked ownership inscription, “Prado,” on frontispiece. All edges speckled brown.

The title is enclosed in borders of type ornaments, which are also elsewhere used to rule or decorate pages. A simple but moving woodcut of Our Lady of Sorrows is so framed on the recto of f. [2]. Sidenotes are included, separated from text by a single rule, and a few woodcut tailpieces are also to be found.

Rare: Searches of NUC, OCLC, and RLIN locate only six copies in the U.S.

•  Medina, Mexico, 3578; Palau 266616. Contemporary limp vellum. A rodent has gnawed the foremargins of the first 12 leaves, costing part of the border of the title-age, one letter on the same, and very small portions of two other letters there. Parts of the type-ornament border on the second leaf are also lost. No text is missing; last page (index) bears ink stains. Classic meditative content.

Copies in condition as close to original as exhibited in this one are increasingly difficult to obtain.

•  Shoemaker 3035; Sabin 72202; this edition not in Palau. Contemporary boards, rebacked with paper in the style of the era; original paper label reapplied. Uncut copy with edges untrimmed. Library bookplate with stamps on it, but no other institutional markings.

Single-click the image,
for an enlargement.

Seventeenth-century manuscripts from Oaxaca are rare in the marketplace.

•  Written in a clear clerical hand. Leaves separated from each other, but in very good condition.

For our MSS in SPANISH:  Click here.

Uncommon: OCLC locates only the copies at the Bancroft and Chilean National libraries; although, clearly, there is or was one in the Sutro Library.

•  Sutro 175.   Removed from a nonce volume. A good clean copy.  (21742)

Click either image for an enlargement.

In addition to the wealth of information here about the origins of the cave as a site of miracles, its history throughout the colonial period, and accounts of miracles occurring there, this work also has important biographies of Augustinians of the 17th century who played important roles in the care and perpetuation of the site.

The engraving shows the cave, the Christ figure, pilgrims, and Augustinian friars.

•  Palau 302085; Medina, Mexico, 10516. 19th-century mottled sheep, abraded, missing spine label; spine is cracking down center, and volume may sometime split into two halves. Some brown stains, most notable in inner and upper or lower margins; lower outside corner of title–page neatly excised. Old ink notes and scribblings.

In our considerable experience, works in Tarascan are considerably rarer than those in Nahuatl, the principal language of central Mexico.

•  Medina, Mexico, 3205; Viñaza 294 (giving wrong date of publication); García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 70 (also giving wrong date); Palau 309782; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3572.   Recased in contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties; some repairs to vellum; vellum cockled and with stains. Modern endpapers. Lacks the title-leaf and the full-page woodcut coat of arms of the dedicatee. Marginal damage to first leaf of front index and to last three leaves (i.e., rear index), repaired. Small loss of perhaps a dozen letters total, all in the indices. Much damaged and priced accordingly — still, textually complete.  (23340)

The pairing of Zelaa’s two efforts in one volume is both uncommon and intellectually reinforcing. But here, it is more than that: It is a personal memento of a life’s work as well, forthis copy bears the bookplate of the editor himself.

Provenance:  Bookplate of José María Zelaa é Hidalgo. 20th-century rubber-stamp with initials only of a private Mexican collector.

•  Sigüenza: Medina, Mexico, 9637; Palau 312964. Zelaa: Medina, Mexico, 10540; Garritz 940; not in Palau. Publisher's sheep, gilt spine; small amount of leather missing from base of spine. Collector’s stamp partly offset to title-page; otherwise, the occasional stray stain only. “Association copies” don’t get much more “associated” than this.

•  Sabin 86487; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 1773n; Palau 318693; European Americana 724/165. Recent quarter calf, antique style: Round spine with raised bands accented with gilt rules and beading; gilt center devices; marbled paper sides. Ex-library copy with stamps. First few leaves crumpled in lower margins; last dozen leaves foxed, sometimes heavily. Lacks all plates and maps except one map—yet pleasing to the reader.

Galvez was a special commissioner charged with making reforms in the governing of Mexico; his work greatly influenced the 1786 replacement of the Mexican provinces with 12 intendencias. The 18th century saw a rebirth of the Mexican and the Peruvian silver industry as new technologies and techniques were introduced. Concomitant with the increased production was increased wealth for the mine owners and the crown.

The frontispiece to this publication is a woodcut of the Mexican Imperial coat of arms.

Searches of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC locate only three copies in U.S. libraries.

•  Not in Sutro. Contemporary treed sheep with modest blind-tooled flowers on spine. Brown stain in upper margin of many leaves, not near text. Private ownership stamp in blind on title-page. Generally a clean copy.

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for an enlargement.

While Ferdinand VII remained the prisoner of Napoleon, the Regency promulgated several important human rights acts, and this was one of the most important. The Regency ratified and published it 29 January and on 31 January it was ordered distributed throughout the empire.

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; not in Garritz, Impresos novohispanos; not in Sutro. Folds from having been previously bound into a small folio volume. Left margin irregular from removal from that volume. Revenue stamps on the verso. Viceroy Venegas’s paraph (“rúbrica”) below his printed name. A very good copy.

•  Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 1612. Not in Medina, Mexico; not in Sutro. Folds from having been previously bound into a small folio volume. Left margin irregular from removal from that volume. Revenue stamps on the verso. Viceroy Venegas’s paraph (“rúbrica”) below his printed name. A very good copy.

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; not in González de Cossío, Cien or 510; not in Harper, Americana Iberica. Removed from a bound volume and left margin slightly irregular; housed in a cloth-backed (faux leather) marbled paper folder.

Coverage of events is wide-ranging and includes Russia, Lithuania, Persia, Byzantium, and the New World. Columbus, Vespucci, and native American cannibalism are discussed under the year 1500; and under 1558 there is a combined account of the exploits of Pizarro in Peru and Cortés in Mexico, with some discussion of Brazil and other areas up to that time.

Printed in small roman type with side- and shouldernotes, historiated woodcut initials, and a printer’s device on the title-page.

•  VD16 S10244; Adams S2099; Alden 568/30; Sabin 93882. Modern full dark calf, in style of the 16th-century including bevelled boards; remnants of clasps retained from an earlier binding. Signature or other ownership mark excised from blank area of title-page. 19th-century ownership inscription at base of title-page. Light waterstaining in some margins. Lacks final blank leaf (only). A very good copy.

Thirty-nine Books and Broadsides describes and offers for sale works that well represent the earliest Mexican printing, the rarities including 14 New World incunabula, 9 only known surviving copies (3 described for the first time), several second known and several more earliest known copies, and a number of works with woodcut illustrations—all from a major private collection. All entries are illustrated and provide exact collations; notably, the bibliography provides the very first accurate system of description for sixteenth-century New World broadsides.

•  Cloth bound and limited to 250 copies.