(TRAVEL) Thomas Gage Nouvelle relation contenant les voyages

Sale 2600 - Lot 343

Price Realized: $ 938

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Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

(TRAVEL.) Thomas Gage. Nouvelle relation contenant les voyages . . . dans la Nouvelle Espagne . . . Nicaragua jusques à la Havane, avec la description de la Ville de Mexique. 4 folding maps, 12 folding plates, 2 engraved additional titles. [22], 200, 178; [2], 318, [8] pages. 2 volumes. 12mo, contemporary calf, moderate wear; minimal wear to contents, a few pencil marks in margins; speckled edges; armorial bookplates on verso of title pages. Amsterdam: Paul Marret, 1695, 1694

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Second edition in French. Gage was an English Catholic who went to Spain and became ordained as a Dominican priest. Although foreigners were forbidden from traveling to the Spanish colonies, a group of Dominicans helped smuggle him in a barrel to Mexico in 1625. He ended up as a missionary in Guatemala, and desiring to return to Europe, fled in 1637 without permission from the order. In England, he abandoned Catholicism, became an Anglican, and published this book. It was the first original account of the Spanish colonies by an Englishman, and would remain the only one for many years. It also offered detailed advice for an English invasion of the colonies. This advice was heeded when the English captured Jamaica in 1655; Gage accompanied the army and died there the following year.

The map of the Americas depicts California as an island. "He appears to have been a believer in witchcraft and sorcery, and admits into his work many curious relations on those subjects"--Sabin 26298. European Americana 695/80; Palau 96485; Sabin 26304.