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William H. Prescott

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: William Hickling Prescott
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(born May 4, 1796, Salem, Mass., U.S. — died Jan. 28, 1859, Boston, Mass.) U.S. historian. Born to a prosperous family, Prescott graduated from Harvard University in 1814 but was prevented by poor health and eyesight from a career in law or business. His friends, including Washington Irving, led him to his life's work: recounting the history of 16th-century Spain and its colonies. He is best known for his History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), for which he made rigorous use of original sources, and which earned him a reputation as the first scientific U.S. historian.

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Biography: William Hickling Prescott
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William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) was one of the greatest American historians. The theme that absorbed him for over 30 years was the rise and decline of the Spanish Empire.

William Hickling Prescott was born in Salem, Mass., on May 4, 1796. His father, Judge William Prescott, was a prominent Federalist. William graduated from Harvard in 1814; at college he lost sight in his left eye during a dining-hall fracas. Despite this disaster and illness (which plagued him all his life), he determined to follow a literary career. He began to contribute to the North American Review, the leading magazine in the country, in 1821. A former schoolmate and lifelong friend, George Ticknor, urged Prescott to devote himself to Spanish studies. Thus began a career which resulted in histories that still enchant.

Other scholars had been drawn to Spain's history before Prescott entered the field in 1826, but he gave it an unmatched sheen. At Christmas, 1837, his Ferdinand and Isabella (3 vols.) was published; it still holds its own as the classic of this period. He then turned to Spain's conquest of Mexico. In The Conquest of Mexico (3 vols., 1843) he narrated the exploits of Hernán Cortés in words never surpassed. The story, thought Prescott, was "an epic in prose, a romance of chivalry." The work was his masterpiece; its material was so drenched in an air of romanticism that it seemed difficult to treat it as sober history. But he carefully sought to distinguish fact from fiction. He had many heroes and heroines but few villains. "One likes a noble character for his canvas, " he said.

Prescott next published A History of the Conquest of Peru (2 vols., 1847). It included important material on the civilization of the Incas. Some scholars still consider it the standard authority.

The last installment of Prescott's project was A History of the Reign of Philip the Second (3 vols., 1855-1858). Although he tried to be impartial, he could not overcome his bias in favor of Protestant Christianity. To him the fall of the Aztecs was unregretted, for their civilization was inferior to that of their conquerors.

Critics dislike the excessive space Prescott gave to military affairs. But he believed his function as historian was storytelling, narrating the deeds of the chevalier, the swashbuckler, the statesman. His work, based on sound scholarship and clothed in gifted language, still entrances readers more than a century after his death in Boston on Jan. 28, 1859.

Further Reading

C. Harvey Gardiner edited Prescott's histories and also materials relating to Prescott in Literary Memoranda (2 vols., 1961) and Papers (1964). Roger Wolcott, ed., The Correspondence of William Hickling Prescott, 1833-1847 (1925), provides indispensable details. The standard biography is by Prescott's friend George Ticknor, Life of William Hickling Prescott (1864). A modern biography is C. Harvey Gardiner, William Hickling Prescott: A Biography (1969). Harry T. Peck, William Hickling Prescott (1905), gives important analyses of Prescott's works. William Charvat and Michael Kraus, William Hickling Prescott (1943), contains a biography, selections from Prescott's writings, a study of his attitudes toward history, his political ideas, and his literary style.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: William Hickling Prescott
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Prescott, William Hickling, 1796-1859, American historian, b. Salem, Mass. He entered his father's law office, but was compelled by a serious eye injury to abandon law. He received medical attention on a European trip and finally, resolving to devote himself to historical writing, began a thorough preparation for the task. His first important historical work, The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (1837), achieved an immediate success. He wrote critical and historical essays while engaged in writing a History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843). The Conquest of Peru (1847), his next major effort, enjoyed a success comparable to his earlier efforts, and though his sight was practically gone he started a monumental work, The History of Philip II (unfinished; Vol. I and II, 1855; Vol. III, 1858). Though Prescott's work is now outdated because of subsequent research, it lives as literature. He is considered to be one of the greatest of American historians. His strength lay not in philosophical insight or deep analysis but in the excellent style and presentation of material that made his facts and his narrative alive, colorful, and vivid. His Biographical and Critical Miscellanies appeared in 1859. His works were edited by W. H. Munro (22 vol., 1904, repr. 1968). His correspondence was edited by Roger Wolcott (1925) and his literary memoranda by C. Harvey Gardiner (1961). A volume of Representative Selections (ed. by William Charvot and Michael Kraus) appeared in 1943.

Bibliography

See William Hickling Prescott: A Memorial (ed. by H. F. Cline et al., 1959); biographies by H. T. Peck (1905, repr. 1969) and C. H. Gardiner (1969).

Works: Works by William Hickling Prescott
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(1796-1859)

1838History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. The Massachusetts historian's first published work is an engaging account of a celebrated era in Spanish history. An immediate commercial bestseller, it is acclaimed by scholars internationally and would be followed by his most enduring work, The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843).
1843The Conquest of Mexico. A dramatic and well-documented narrative history describing the Aztec civilization and its conquest by Cortez. Prescott's most popular work, it suggests that the fall of the Aztecs resulted from their oppression of other cultures. Its portrayal of Mexicans in 1519 as backward and barbarous was picked up by newspapers and pamphlets to describe the Mexicans during the Mexican War.
1845Biographical and Critical Miscellanies. A collection of Prescott's most important essays on literary history, including an essay on Cervantes and Italian narrative poetry; analyses of the works of his friends, including George Ticknor and George Bancroft; and a brief "Life of Charles Brockden Brown."
1847History of the Conquest of Peru. A narrative history of Pizarro's invasion of Peru, which Prescott had written after the success of The Conquest of Mexico (1843). The work covers Inca culture, the conquests, civil wars between the conquerors, and the discovery and settlement of the country. It remains a standard authority.
1855History of the Reign of Philip the Second. Prescott begins publishing his final major historical work, issuing three volumes between 1855 and 1858 despite ill health and flagging energy. He dies while preparing the fourth volume.

Wikipedia: William H. Prescott
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William H. Prescott (c. 1850).

William Hickling Prescott (May 4, 1796 – January 29, 1859) was an American historian, known for his books The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic and The History of the Conquest of Mexico.

Contents

Early life

William H. Prescott was born in Salem, Massachusetts on May 4, 1796, the first of seven children, though four of his siblings died in infancy.[1] His parents were William Prescott, Jr., who was a lawyer, and his wife, née Catherine Greene Hickling. His grandfather William Prescott served as a Colonel during the American Revolutionary War. Young William Prescott began formal schooling at the age of seven before the family moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1808; his studies continued under Dr. John Gardiner, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church.[2]

Prescott enrolled at Harvard College as a sophomore in August 1811, living in the same room where both his father stayed and his future son would stay.[3] Prescott suffered from failing eyesight after a thrown crust of bread was temporarily lodged in his eye. It was a problem that would haunt him for the rest of his life, losing eyesight in one eye completely and in the other significantly, with the remaining eye suffering ups and downs, sometimes being inactive altogether for periods of time. He graduated from Harvard in 1814. He made an extended tour in Europe, and on his return to America he married, and abandoning the idea of a legal career, resolved to devote himself to literature.

Historian

After ten years of study, he published in 1837 his History of Ferdinand and Isabella, which at once gained for him a high place among historians. It was followed in 1843 by the History of the Conquest of Mexico, and in 1847 by the Conquest of Peru. His last work was the History of Philip II, of which the third volume appeared in 1858, and which was left unfinished. In that year he had an apoplectic shock, and another in 1859 was the cause of his death.

Photograph of Prescott (ca. 1860-1865), by Matthew Brady

In all his works he displayed great research, impartiality, and an admirable narrative power. The great disadvantage at which, owing to his very imperfect vision, he worked, makes the first of these qualities specially remarkable, for his authorities in a foreign tongue were read to him, while he had to write on a frame for the blind. Prescott was a man of amiable and benevolent character, and enjoyed the friendship of many of the most distinguished men in Europe as well as in America.

Much of Prescott's work was based on his researches with unpublished documents in archives in Spain.

W. H. Prescott died of a stroke in Boston, Massachusetts.

Legacy

In Arizona, the town of Prescott was named after him for his book The Conquest of Mexico.

Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico was a seminal influence on Edward E. Ayer (1841–1927), a wealthy antiquarian and collector of books and original manuscripts from Native American and colonial-era histories and ethnography. During his lifetime Ayer amassed a collection of more than fifty thousand volumes and documents on pre-and post-Columbian American histories, which as the Ayer Collection donated to the Newberry Library in Chicago represented one of the most extensive and significant Americana collections then accumulated. Ayer credited Prescott's Conquest books as the inspiration behind his efforts and interest in Americanist literature, since as Ayer himself noted they had been the "first books [he] had ever bought and that they had given [him] the incentive to read and taught [him] how interesting history was."[4] In his later memoirs, Ayer confirmed:

I feel that that day, taking those books home, was, perhaps, the happiest day of my life up to that time; and going home I only touched the earth in high places. And I want to reiterate that the finding of Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico in that mine in Arizona in ’62, has been responsible and is to be credited as the principal force that has given me a vast amount of enjoyment in this world, and is absolutely responsible for the “Ayer Collection” in the Newberry Library, Chicago.[5]

The historic house in Boston in which Prescott lived from 1845 to 1859 is named after him.

In 1966 the Colegio Anglo Americano Prescott (school)[1] was founded in Arequipa, Peru in Prescott's honor. The first principal was Manuel Paz Bishop.

Family

On May 4, 1820 William married Susan Amory, the daughter of Thomas Coffin Amory and Hannah Rowe Linzee.

Children
  1. Catherine Prescott (September 23, 1824 - February 1, 1829)
  2. William Gardiner Prescott (born January 27, 1826)
  3. Elizabeth Prescott (born July 27, 1828)
  4. William Amory Prescott (born January 25, 1830)

Published works

  • The History of Ferdinand and Isabella 1837
  • The History of the Conquest of Mexico 1843
  • The History of the Conquest of Peru 1847
  • The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain 1855-1859

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Sullivan, p. 154
  2. ^ Sullivan, pp. 155–156
  3. ^ Sullivan, p. 156
  4. ^ Ayer (on the flyleaves of his copy of The Conquest of Mexico)
  5. ^ Lockwood, p.49.


References

Ayer, Edward E. (December 1950). "How I Bought My First Book" (reproduced online, text originally written by Ayer on the flyleaves of his copy of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico). Newberry Library Bulletin (Chicago: Newberry Library). ISSN 0028-8861. OCLC 2521448. http://www.newberry.org/collections/Ayer_How_I.html. Retrieved 2008-05-27. 
Familysearch.org Accessed December 20, 2008
Johnson, Rossiter, and John Howard Brown. The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans. Boston: Biographical Society, 1904. googlebooks Retrieved August 26, 2009
Lockwood, Frank C. (1929). The life of Edward E. Ayer. Chicago, IL: A.C. McClurg. OCLC 1251430. 
Palmer, Joseph (1864). Necrology of Alumni of Harvard College, 1851–52 to 1862–63. Boston, MA: J. Wilson and Son. OCLC 1344448. 
Sullivan, Wilson. New England Men of Letters. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972, ISBN 0027886808
Ticknor, George (1861). Papers discussing the comparative merits of Prescott's and Wilson's histories, pro. and con.: As laid before the Massachusetts Historical Society. Boston: [s.n.]. OCLC 12315930. 
Wilson, Robert Anderson (1859). A New History of the Conquest of Mexico: In which Las Casas' denunciations of the popular historians of that war are fully vindicated. Philadelphia, PA: James Challen & Son. OCLC 9642461. 
Winsor, Justin (2006) [1866]. "Cortés and his Companions: Critical essay on the documentary sources of Mexican history". in Justin Winsor, (ed.). Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2. Elibron Classics series (unabridged facsimile of edn. published 1866 [Boston:Houghton, Mifflin & Co.] ed.). Boston, MA: Adamant Media Corporation. pp. 397–430. ISBN 0-543-98914-3. OCLC 3523208. 
William H. Prescott at the Internet Accuracy Project Accessed December 20, 2008


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