The first Booke of the historie of the Discouerie and Conquest of the East Indias, enterprised by the Portingales, in their daungerous Nauigations, in the time of King Don Iohn, the second of that name. Which Historie conteineth much varietie of matter, very profitable for all Nauigators, and not vnpleasaunt to the Readers. Set foorth in the Portingale language, by Hernan Lopes de Castaneda. And now translated into English, by N.L. Gentleman
London: Thomas East, 1582. First edition in English.
Octavo in 4s (7 7/16” x 5 3/8”, 188mm x 137mm): πA2 A-Ss4 Tt4(–Tt4) [$3 signed; – πA1]. 169 leaves, pp. [12] (title, blank, 2pp. dedication to Sir Francis Drake, 7pp. dedication to João III of Portugal, blank); foll. 1-163.
Bound in XXc dark teal morocco with a double blind fillet border. On the spine, four raised bands. All edges of the text-block specked red.
Spine sunned, with the front board a little splayed. Text-block a little cockled generally. Lacking the colophon (Tt4). Title-leaf (πA1) mounted, first dedication leaf (πA2) extended at the fore and lower edges. Repairs to the fore-margins of G4 and Tt3, and to the fore-corners of Tt1-2. Damp-stain to the upper margin of Rr1-Ss4. Repaired tears (using clear archival tape) to the final two leaves (Tt2-3) Soiled sporadically, particularly at the ends. Good margins, with lower deckles preserved, e.g., Kk1-2. Book-label of James Stevens Cox to the front paste-down, as well as a second label below. A leaf of manuscript bibliographic notes (with a mounted over-slip) tipped in to the recto of the first free end-paper, post-1870. Marginalia to the recto of A1 and to the verso of Tt3 in an early secretary hand. Marginalia in a later hand (late XVIIIc?) supplying years of the events recounted in the text.
Fernão Lopes de Castanheda (ca. 1500–1559) was the illegitimate son of a judge presiding in the Portuguese colony of Goa, which obtained from 1509 through 1961. Joining his father in 1528, he spent a decade collecting first-hand sources of the Portuguese expeditions throughout the Subcontinent as well as greater Southeast Asia. Thus armed with research, he settled in Coimbra and set about publishing this comprehensive history of Portuguese colonization in the East Indies, which was published in 1551 (a book that exists in perhaps three copies: the British Library, the John Carter Brown Library (incomplete) and the Newberry Library (incomplete)). That project was projected to run to ten volumes, but only eight were published (three posthumously).
Given the pre-eminence of Portuguese explorers in this period, the account was translated widely throughout Europe. “Nicholas Lichefild” (a second issue prints “Nicholas Lichefield, Gentleman”) — has been identified by Penrose and Hill (inter alia) with Thomas Nicholas (who translated Spanish, principally) — provided this first translation into English of the first part. None of the subsequent parts were issued in English (though the translator in his dedication to Sir Francis Drake tantalizes: “if it may please you to peruse & accept in good part, I shalbe greatly emboldened to proceede & publish also the second & third booke” (πA2v)) making the present work the best early account in English of a region that would become a major focus of British exploration and colonization.
The annotations in secretary hand are difficult to make out. At the beginning of the dedication to João III, only a few letters are preserved, with evidence of some erasure. At the very end of the text are ten or so words, of which only snatches can be read — “cane… say…” — but at least allows the dating of the hand to not long after publication. The second campaign of marking is an annotator who added numerical years to the margins, e.g., fol. 2v against “the seaventh day of May, in the yeare of our Lord, a thousand foure hundred foure score and seaven” writing “In the year/ 1487”. It shows, perhaps, an XVIIIc antiquary reading the account.
Perhaps next are the bibliographic notes — the pasted over-slip covers sums, perhaps purchase records for the book — that recount information to do with the identity of Nicholas Lichefi[e]ld or of prices achieved for the volume at various auctions, published in Bliss’s early-XIXc edition of Thomas à Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses, Beloe’s early-XIXc Anecdotes of Literature, the Athenæum of 31 August 1867 (p. 2070 (in fact no. 2079)) and Notes & Queries of May 29, 1870 (p. 1507, asked by Maj. R.R.W. Ellis).
The letterpress and wood-engraved oblong label at the lower edge of the front paste-down is a mystery. The vignette shows ships under sail beside a sea well; presumably it is the label of a collector of voyages. Above, in green letterpress, is the ex libris of James Stevens Cox (1910–1997). Stevens Cox was a Bristolian bibliophile and bookseller, as well as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. His obituary in the Independent, written by no less than Nicolas Barker, describes his vast collection and connections to Geoffrey Keynes and John Sparrow. Maggs published in 2010 a catalogue of his holdings in STC.
Alden & Landis 582/44 (under Lopes de Castanheda, as are many of the succeeding); Borba de Moraes I:143; Hill 1035; Sabin 11391; STC 16806.
Item #JLR0602
Price: $34,000