?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 80,000 - $ 120,000
(MEXICAN LITERATURE.) Juana Inés de la Cruz. Complete set of her collected works. [16], 328; [8], 467, [5]; [130], 212, [3] pages. 4to, uniform modern morocco in period style; lacking one leaf in Volume II, other minor issues as noted below; inked Spanish convent stamps on title pages on Volumes II and III, ex-libris bookplates of noted Spanish book collector José Gallart Folch (1895-1979) on front pastedowns. Madrid and Barcelona, 1689, 1693, 1701
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695) was a Mexican nun at the San Jerónimo Convent who, against all odds, became a prolific and well-regarded poet. Her prominence as an intellectual began to bring her in conflict with the church leadership after 1690. Two volumes of her collected works were published in 1689 and 1692 (a posthumous volume followed in 1700) which contain virtually all that remains of her writings. In 1693 and 1694, she ceased writing, was forced to sell her extensive book collection, publicly repented, and was restricted to charity work among the poor. In 1695, while tending to her fellow sisters during an epidemic, she became fatally ill. Her reputation has only grown over the centuries. She now ranks among the most enduring literary figures of colonial Mexico, and a proto-feminist icon. Offered here is a set of early editions of her collected works, as follows.
"Inundacion castalida de la unica poetisa, musa decima." Toning, minor edge wear, moderate dampstaining, dark stain in lower corner scarcely affecting text. First edition. Madrid: Juan Garcia Infanzon, 1689.
"Segundo tomo de las obras . . . segunda impression." Moderate foxing and toning, minor edge wear, lacking leaf S2 (pages 275-6). Second edition, after the 1692 first edition. Barcelona: Joseph Llopis, 1693.
"Fama, y obras posthumas, tomo tercero, del Fenix de Mexico, y decima musa, poetisa de la America." Early manuscript waste paper endpapers, two preliminary leaves transposed, minor foxing and toning, minor wear. Second edition, after the first edition of 1700. Barcelona: Rafael Figueró, 1701.
Medina BHA, 1836, 1908, 2028; Palau 65220, 65224, 65228. We trace no other complete sets of her works in the first or second edition at auction.
