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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
The indecision which plagued Prescott regarding the advisability of publishing the massive manuscript on which he had labored a decade yielded to a decisively vigorous, though little known, presentation of that work to the American reading public.
The manuscript of the History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic, concluded by Prescott in mid-1836, passed, in succeeding months, through the hands of one friendly critic after another. First to subject the long opus to critical evaluation was William Howard Gardiner, a foremost figure in the inner circle of Prescott's Boston neighbors and literary friends. Next it went to editor-historian Jared Sparks, then situated in Cambridge. Reflectively reading and, as circumstances permitted, occasionally visiting Prescott to discuss the manuscript with him, Sparks never had reason to retract the judgment he pronounced on February 24, 1837 in a brief note which closed with the succinct assertion, “The book will be sucessful,—bought, read and praised.” With the spring of 1837 the itinerant manuscript passed into the hands of the scholarly-minded city solicitor of Boston, John Pickering, but before that reader could be heard from, Prescott was actively facing the publication problem on another front.
1 Ticknor, George Life of William Hickling Prescott (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1895), p. 96.Google Scholar
2 Massachusetts Historical Society, Prescott Papers, Jared Sparks to William H. Prescott, February 24, 1837. For permission to work with these papers and related collections the writer wishes to express his appreciation to Mr. Roger Wolcott, great-grandson of Prescott, and Director Stephen T. Riley and the staff of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
3 In addition to indicating that this quotation inspires the title of the present article, it should be said that Prescott commonly referred to the products of his pen as barks, bantlings, trumpery, etc.
4 MHS, Bancroft Papers, William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, March 6, 1837. The reference is to Bancroft’s History of the United States, the first volume of which had appeared in 1834.
5 Ibid.
6 This contract, no copy of which is extant and available, is best summarized in Ticknor, , Prescott, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar For Prescott’s own comment on the terms of that contract prior to the final formulation of its precise phrasing, see Wolcott, Roger (ed.), The Correspondence of William Hickling Prescott 1833–1847 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925), pp. 13,Google Scholar 16.
7 MHS, Prescott Papers, John Pickering to William H. Prescott, May 1 [1837]. A full text of this letter is reproduced in Ticknor, , Prescott, p. 97.Google Scholar
8 Charles Folsom, longtime friend of Prescott, performed this service which Wolcott mistakenly assigns to then absent-in-Europe Ticknor; see Ticknor, , Prescott, p. 99 Google Scholar; and Wolcott, (ed.), Correspondence, p. 17n.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 19.
10 MHS, Bancroft Papers, William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, October 4, 1837; and Harvard University, The Houghton Library, Prescott Papers, William H. Prescott to Richard Bentley, October 4, 1837. For permission to work with the Harvard-owned papers the writer wishes to express his appreciation to the staff of The Houghton Library and especially to Miss Carolyn E. Jakeman.
11 MHS, Bancroft Papers, William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, November 17, 1837.
12 Ibid., William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, December 16, 1837.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, December 20, 1837. As he compiled with Prescott’s request, Bancroft initially penned the list of recommended publications on the cover of his friend’s letter of December 16th.
15 Boston Courier, December 25, 1837. The file of this newspaper, as well as those of all other Boston newspapers mentioned in subsequent notes, was consulted at Boston Public Library. Most are in bound volumes, an occasional one is on microfilm, and several have been transferred to the New England Deposit Library. For the kind co-operation of the staff of the newspaper division of that library the writer expresses his appreciation.
16 MHS, Bancroft Papers, William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, December 25, 1837.
17 Ticknor, , Prescott, 101.Google Scholar
18 MHS, Bancroft Papers, William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, December 25, 1837; and HU-H, Sparks Papers, William H. Prescott to Jared Sparks, December 25, 1837.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Boston Courier, December 26, 1837-January 1, 1838; and the Boston Daily Advertiser, December 26, 1837-January 1, 1838. In its promise of a portrait of Columbus, the advertisement is in error. Whereas the first and second American editions contain portraits of Ferdinand, Isabella, and Ximenes, the first English edition offered its readers a portrait of Columbus as the frontispiece of volume one. Preferring Columbus to Ximenes as an illustration, as well as frankly admiring the quality of the British engraving of the discoverer, Prescott dropped the churchman in his favor but the change occurred only with the release of the third American edition in August, 1838.
22 Boston Courier, December 26–30, 1837; and the Boston Daily Advertiser, December 26–29, 1837.
23 Boston Mercantile Journal, December 27, 1837.
24 Daily Evening Transcript, December 27, 1837.
25 Boston Daily Advertiser, December 27, 1837.
26 Boston Weekly Messenger, December 28, 1837.
27 Boston Courier, December 30, 1837. With the Daily Evening Transcript of the same date indicating the review had been published that day, some confusion exists as to the-exact earliest moment it reached the reading public.
28 Boston Courier, January 1, 1838.
29 Wolcott, (ed.), Correspondence, p. 21 Google Scholar; and Ticknor, , Prescott, pp. 108–109.Google Scholar
30 [Gardiner, William Howard], “Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella,” North American Review, 46 (January, 1838), 203–291.Google Scholar The reviewer’s adverse criticism centered on such matters as the phrasing of the title, the author’s use of Spanish and French words, and equally minor points.
31 Boston Courier, January 3, 1838.
32 Ibid., January 4–10, 1838; and the Evening Mercantile Journal, January 5–22, 1838.
33 Boston Daily Advertiser, January 4–6, 1838.
34 This appeared in the Evening Mercantile Journal, January 1-February 4, 1838, and with the file wanting at Boston Public Library for the last week of 1837, it is possible Ticknor’s advertising started as early as that of any other bookseller.
35 American Traveller, January 2, 5, 9, 1838.
36 Boston Recorder, January 5, 12, 1838.
37 Boston Courier, January 4, 1838.
38 Wolcott, (ed.), Correspondence, p. 21.Google Scholar
39 [Greenwood, F.W.P.], “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic,” The Christian Examiner and General Review, 24 (March, 1838), 99–101,Google Scholar 108. Although unsigned, the Greenwood review did close with the initials F. W. P. G.
40 [Pickering, John], “Prescott’s Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,” The New-York Review, 2 (April, 1838), 339.Google Scholar
41 At Harvard University, Widener Library, a copy of this prospectus is bound with Count Adolphe de Circourt’s lengthy Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève review of Ferdinand and Isabella, under the catalogue classification “ Span 503.40.”
42 Wolcott, (ed.), Correspondence, p. 33.Google Scholar
43 The Spectator, XI, No. 497 (January 6, 1838), 15.
44 The Athenaeum—Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts, No. 534 (January 20, 1838), 42. This review also was unsigned.
45 de Gayangos’, Pascual review appeared in the Edinburgh Review, 68 (January, 1839), 376–405 Google Scholar and that of Ford, Richard appeared in the Quarterly Review, 64 (June, 1839), 1–58.Google Scholar Both were unsigned and both larded their praise with considerable criticism, that of Gayangos was warmly friendly and helpful, that of Ford hostilely condescending. Both men became Prescott’s friends, with Gayangos his most indefatigable aide.
46 The American Monthly, n.s. V (May, 1838), 474. As for the continuing acceptance of Prescott’s work, the present writer, in the course of a bibliographical analysis of that author’s published works, has seen copies of more than one hundred different issues of Ferdinand and Isabella.
47 [ Bancroft, George], “Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella,” The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, 2, No. VI (May, 1838), 162,Google Scholar 165, 166; and MHS, Bancroft Papers, William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, December 16, 1837, annotated by Bancroft.
48 Ibid., William H. Prescott to George Bancroft, May 5, 1838.
49 HU-H, Prescott Papers, William H. Prescott to Richard Bentley, November 26, 1849.