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•  NSTC 2M9198.   Uncut, unopened. Folded as issued. Two long tears into text on two different leaves, repaired with archival tissue. Good+ copy.  (17506)

•  Palau 148579; Almirante, Bibliografía militar de España, 471. Removed from a nonce volume. Shadow of pencilled numeral in upper outer corner of title-page. Pages browned, with waterstaining to inner corners.

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Such statistical publications as this were essential for the government of the newly independent nation, especially for planning purposes and for use when negotiating with bankers for the loans so essential to the nascent nation.

Interestingly, the population statistics ignore distinctions such as “indio,” “mestizo,” etc. The brief paragraphs about the towns and hamlets are filled with facts such as that the nuns of one particular town still wear hats of the Quiroga style.

An observation having nothing to do with the text: The paper on which this work is printed is very thin laid paper with no apparent watermark. The quality is not “European” and this cataloguer (DMS), with nearly 40 years experience with Mexican books, wonders if the paper is from one of Mexico's first paper mills?

•  Palau 155712; not in Sutro. Later 19th-century quarter sheep with stone pattern marbled paper sides. Binding worn, text skewed in binding. Private ownership pressure stamp on title-page.

•  Late 19th-century quarter red morocco, plain style, with marbled–paper covered boards. Leather lightly scuffed in places. All edges marbled to match endpapers. Occasional pencilling.  (24596)

We locate only three copies worldwide.

•  Slightly irregular margins, as issued. Handsome.

Also included is a woodcut map showing Europe, the Atlantic, and the New World.

•  Palau 159680; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 609/77; Medina, BHA, 123. Old vellum; red leather, gilt-lettered spine label; some staining, and chipping to edges and label. Old, careful repairs to interior worming occasionally cost individual letters (but never sense) or a little loss to an illustration. Old rubber-stamps and red and black ownership label on title-page; inked notations on title-page and front pastedown. All edges speckled red.

Binding: Signed binding (with Bilbao’s ticket on front pastedown) of oxblood morocco, front and back covers framed in a wide gilt roll surrounding gilt-stamped coat of arms of Francesco de Assisi de Bourbon, Duc de Cadiz (consort to Isabella II of Spain); spine with four raised bands, compartments gilt extra, with author, title, and date gilt-stamped. Board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls; all page edges gilt; blue moiré endpapers.

Provenance: Front pastedown with bookplate of Maria Christina, Queen of Spain.

•  Palau 350495. Binding as above, showing light wear, spine slightly faded; pastedowns with some offsetting, endpapers with spots of foxing. Rare and attractive.

This document gives the rules, constitutions, privileges, and indulgences of the third order in Lima on the occasion of its reestablishment at the conventual church of St. Michael. A fine woodcut of the arms of the Mercedarian order, surrounded by a typographic border, graces the verso of the title-leaf.

This is the first edition of the Breve compendio; it was reprinted in 1870.

•  Medina, Lima, 1945. Limp vellum lightly cockled and a little stained/soiled, with small hole to front cover from a defect in the skin; traces of adhesive on covers and a small paper label on front one. One small wormhole piercing margin of some leaves; traces of soiling and very light waterstaining. Library bookplate and personal rubber-stamp on front pastedown; old call number neatly penned (and crossed out) on title-page verso.