William Hickling Prescott, the renowned American historian who
chronicled the rise and fall of the Spanish empire, was born in
Salem, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1796. His grandfather had commanded
colonial forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American
Revolution; his father was a highly respected judge and
philanthropist. Prescott was tutored in Latin and Greek by the
rector of Trinity Church in Boston and entered Harvard in 1811. In
a bizarre accident, Prescott was blinded in the left eye by a crust
of bread thrown in a dining-hall fracas. He abandoned plans to
study law but went on to graduate in 1814 having earned membership
in Phi Beta Kappa. While traveling abroad the following year
Prescott temporarily lost the sight in his right eye. With his
vision permanently impaired, he aspired to the life of
gentleman-scholar. Prescott launched a career as a man of letters
in 1821 with an essay on Byron that appeared in the North American
Review. Over the next two decades he contributed regularly to the
prestigious Boston literary journal. His most important articles
and reviews, including seminal pieces on the theory and practice of
historical composition, were later collected in Biographical and
Critical Miscellanies (1845) and Critical and Historical Essays
(1850).
Under the influence of George Ticknor, a friend and mentor who
taught European literature at Harvard, Prescott began learning
Spanish in 1824. Engrossed by the history of Spain, he committed
himself to tracing its development into a world power. Employing
secretaries to read him manuscripts sent from Spanish archives,
Prescott set about writing a work of sound scholarship that would
also interest a general audience. A phenomenal memory allowed him
to compose whole chapters in his mind during morning horseback
rides. Later he recorded them on paper using a noctograph, a
special stylus for the blind. More than a decade later he finished
The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic
(1837), which enjoyed tremendous critical and popular success on
both sides of the Atlantic.
Prescott's fame gained him entree into Spanish intellectual
circles, greatly facilitating research on his next book, History of
the Conquest of Mexico (1843), a sweeping account of Cortes's
subjugation of the Aztec people. "Regarded simply from the
standpoint of literary criticism, the Conquest of Mexico is
Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck.
"More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the
English language possesses of literary art applied to historical
narration. . . . Prescott transmuted the acquisitions of laborious
research into an enduring monument of pure literature." Pulitzer
Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin agreed- "The enduring
interest in Prescott's Conquest of Mexico comes less from his
engaging survey of Aztec civilization than from his genius for the
epic. . . . Though Prescott has been called the nation's first
'scientific historian' for his use of manuscript sources, he would
live on as a creator of literature."
Prescott completed his pioneering study of Spanish exploits in the
New World with the History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), a vivid
chronicle of Pizarro's tumultuous overthrow of the Inca empire.
"The Conquest of Peru represents an author's triumph over his
materials," observed Donald G. Darnell, one of the historian's
several biographers. "Prescott exploits to the fullest any
opportunities for dramatic effects that history might provide him.
. . . The description of the Inca civilization, particularly its
wealth, the precise explanation of the cause of the conflict
between the conquerors, and the depiction of the Spanish
character-these together with the careful research, the sheer abun
dance of anecdotes, and the exploitation of primary materials
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