Note 262 — Chapter I · (continued 2)

There are copies in the Boston Athenæum, Boston Public, and Harvard College libraries (Sabin, nos. 31,541, 31,546; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. nos. 376, 450; Huth, vol. ii. no. 683; Leclerc, no. 278, one hundred and thirty francs; Field, no. 689; ordinary copies are priced at £3 or £4; large paper at £10 or £12). A rival but inferior edition was issued at Antwerp in 1728, without maps, and with De Bry’s instead of Herrera’s engravings (Sabin, no. 31,545). A French version was begun at Paris in 1659, but was reissued in 1660-1670 in three volumes (Sabin, nos. 31,548-31,550; Field, no. 690; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 875; Leclerc, no. 282, sixty francs), including only three decades. Portions were included in the Dutch collection of Van der Aa (Sabin, nos. 31,551, etc.; Carter-Brown, iii. 111). It is also included in Hulsius, part xviii. (Carter-Brown, i. 496). The English translation of the first three decades, by Captain John Stevens, is in six volumes, London, 1725-1726; but a good many liberties are taken with the text (Sabin, no. 31,557; Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 355). New titles were given to the same sheets, in 1740, for what is called a second edition (Sabin, no. 31,558). “How many misstatements are attributed to Herrera which can be traced no nearer that author than Captain John Stevens’s English translation? It is absolutely necessary to study this latter book to see where so many English and American authors have taken incorrect facts” (H. Stevens, Bibliotheca Hist., p. xiii.).