Los Tres primeros historiadores de la Isla de Cuba. Reproduccion de las Historias de D. José Martin Félix de Arrate y D. Antonio José Valdés y publicacion de la inédita del Dr. D. Ignacio Urrutia y Montoya, adicionadas con multitud de notas y aumentadas con descripciones historicas de la mayor parte de las ciudades, villas y pueblos de esta isla que en ellas se mencionan[The First Three Historians of the Island of Cuba. A reproduction of the histories by Don José Martín Félix de Arrate and Don Antonio José Valdés, together with the first publication of the unpublished work of Dr. Don Ignacio Urrutia y Montoya, enriched with numerous notes and augmented with historical descriptions of most of the cities, towns, and villages of this island mentioned therein]
New edition, embellished at the close of the first volume with a folding plate printed out of text (cf. Palau 17346).
Cherry half-shagreen bindings, spines with four raised false bands decorated with gilt fillets and double gilt panels, gilt lettering at the foot of the spines, slight rubbing to the headcaps, blind-tooled frames on the textured cloth boards, pebble-paper endpapers and pastedowns, a few bumped corners, period bindings.
Rear board of the first volume partially soiled.
New edition prepared under the supervision of the physician Rafael Ángel Cowley Valdés-Machado (1837–1908) and Andrés Pego, gathering three major sources for Cuban historiography: José Martín de Arrate y Acosta’s (1701–1765) Llave del Nuevo Mundo. Antemural de las Indias Occidentales, a meticulous portrait of eighteenth-century Cuban society first published only in 1830; Ignacio Urrutia y Montoya’s (1735–1795) Teatro Histórico, Jurídico, Político, Militar de la Isla Fernandina de Cuba, of which only the first part had appeared in 1795; and finally Antonio José Valdés’s (1770–1824) Historia General de la Isla de Cuba y en especial de la Habana, published in 1811.
Provenance: from the library of Ricardo Quintiliano Garcia, his name gilt-stamped at the foot of the spines; with his presentation inscription to his brother dated 15 July 1877 on the front flyleaf of the first volume.