[1201] Rich priced it in 1832 at £1 10s.; ordinary copies are now worth about £2 or £3, but fine copies in superior binding have reached £12 12s. (Cf. Leclerc, no. 5—200 francs; Sunderland, i. 24; J. A. Allen, Bibliography of Cetacea, p. 24,—where this and other early books on America are recorded with the utmost care.) Other Spanish editions are Helmstadt, 1590 (Bartlett); Seville, 1591 (Brunet, Backer); Barcelona, 1591 (Carter-Brown, i. 478; Leclerc, no. 7); Madrid, 1608 (Carter-Brown, ii, 61; Leclerc, no. 8) and 1610 (Sabin); Lyons, 1670; and Madrid, 1792, called the best edition, with a notice of Acosta.
The French editions followed rapidly: Paris, by R. Regnault, 1597 (Brunet, Markham); 1598 (Leclerc, no. 10—100 francs; Dufossé, 125 francs, 140 francs, 160 francs); 1600 (Leclerc, no. 11; Bishop Huet’s copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris has notes which are printed by Camus in his book on De Bry); 1606 (Leclerc, nos. 12, 13); 1616 (Carter-Brown, ii. 177; Leclerc, no. 2,639—50 francs); 1617 (Leclerc, no. 14); 1619 (Sabin); 1621 (Rich). An Italian version, made by Gallucci, was printed at Venice in 1596 (Leclerc, no. 15).
There were more liberties taken with it in German. It was called Geographische und historische Beschreibung der America, when printed at Cologne in 1598, with thirty maps, as detailed in the Carter-Brown Catalogue, i. 520. Antonio (Biblioteca Hispana Nova) gives the date 1599. At Cologne again in 1600 it is called New Welt (Carter-Brown, i. 548), and at Wesel, in 1605, America oder West India, which is partly the same as the preceding (Carter-Brown, ii. 31). Antonio gives an edition in 1617.
The Dutch translation, following the 1591 Seville edition, was made by Linschoten, and printed at Haarlem in 1598 (Leclerc, no. 16); and again, with woodcuts, in 1624 (Carter-Brown, ii. 287; Murphy, no. 9). It is also in Vander Aa’s collection, 1727. It was from the Dutch version that it was turned (by Gothard Arthus for De Bry in his Great Voyages, part ix.) into German, in 1601; and into Latin, in 1602 and 1603.
The first English translation did not appear till 1604, at London, as The naturall and morall historie of the East und West Indies. Intreating of the remarkable 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 Ioseph Acosta, and translated into English by E[dward] G[rimston]. Rich priced it fifty years ago at £1 16s.; it is usually priced now at from four to eight guineas (cf. Carter-Brown, ii. 21; Field, no. 8; Menzies, no. 4; Murphy, no. 8). It was reprinted, with corrections of the version, and edited by C. R. Markham for the Hakluyt Society in 1880.
[1202] This is extremely rare. Quaritch, who said in 1879 that only three copies had turned up in London in thirty years, prices an imperfect copy at £5. (Catalogue, no. 326 sub. no. 17,635.)
It is worth while to note how events in the New World, during the early part of the sixteenth century, were considered in their relation to European history. Cf. for instance, Ulloa’s Vita dell’imperator Carlo V. (Rome, 1562), and such chronicles as the Anales de Aragon, first and second parts. Harrisse (Bibl. Amer. Vet. and Additions), and the Carter-Brown Catalogue (vol. i.) will lead the student to this examination, in their enumeration of books only incidentally connected with America. To take but a few as representative:
Maffeius, Commentariorum urbanorum libri, Basle, 1530, with its chapter on “loca nuper reperta.” (Harrisse, Additions, no. 93; edition of 1544, Bibl. Amer. Vet. no. 257, and Additions, no. 146. Fabricius cites an edition as early as 1526.)
Laurentius Frisius, Der Cartha Marina, Strasburg, 1530. (Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 151; Additions, no. 90.)
Gemma Phrysius, De Principiis Astronomiæ et Cosmographicæ, with its cap. xxix., “De insulis nuper inventis.” (Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., Additions, no. 92.) There are later editions in 1544 (Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 252), 1548; also Paris, in French, 1557, etc.