Limited to 250 numbered copies. As-new condition.

Printing in North America began not in 1640 in Massachusetts, but in 1539, in Mexico, at a point in printing history when technique, typography, and aesthetic norms were widely first-rate. The European printers who came to the New World to produce the "incunables" and other "early printed" works of Mexico and Peru maintained the high standards of their homelands in a degree that astonishes those whoe understanding of early American printing has been based purely on familiarity with the works produced a hundred and more years later in what is now the U.S.

Thirty-nine Books and Broadsides describes works that well represent the earliest Mexican printing, the rarities including 14 New World incunabula, 9 the only known surviving copies (3 described for the first time), several second known and several more earliest known copies, and a number of works with woodcut illustrations - all from a major private collection.

All entries are illustrated and provide exact collations; notably, the bibliography provides the very first accurate system of description for 16-century New World broadsides. Each item fully described bibliographicaly and illustrated as well. From the reference library of Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts with their bookplate included.