William Hickling Prescott, Boston aristocrat and patrician-historian, is universally recognized as the first United States historian to investigate seriously Spanish and Spanish-American history. His dedication to research and his polished narrative style have made his works classics of American literature and historiography. In the age of the gentleman-scholar Prescott met the demands of both history and literature. The compelling sweep and controlled mastery of detail in the History of the Conquest of Mexico made it a universal classic which has undergone over two hundred editions and been published in over twenty languages. Even the less masterful History of the Conquest of Peru has enjoyed similar worldwide acclaim. Yet it was Prescott's first and least popular study, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, which established his scholarly reputation and made him a celebrity on both sides of the Atlantic.

Prescott was a proper Boston aristocrat...