Subtitle: by his Son Ferdinand
Author: Benjamin Keen
Subject: History
Paper ISBN 0-8135-1801-6
Cloth ISBN 0-8135-1869-5
Pages: 340 pp.
Description:

"The cornerstone of the history of the American continent."--Washington Irving

This is the first complete and adequate English translation of the famous biography of Columbus by his son. First written in Spanish, originally published in translation in Italian in 1571, and published in English originally by Rutgers University Press in 1959, this book has been out of print since the early 1970s.

This new edition, published to coincide with the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary celebrations, includes a new introduction by Benjamin Keen. The introduction traces the changing assessments of Columbus and his discovery over almost five centuries as reflected in the writings of historians, other social scientists, novelists, and poets, and shows how those assessments were influenced by varying political, social, and intellectual conditions of different periods. In addition, Keen's preface, his translation, and the annotation have been revised to reflect new information and viewpoints developed since publication of the first edition in 1959.

This book is a moving and personal document, recreating the action and drama of discovery. Provoked in part by the Crown's attempts to diminish Columbus's role as Discover, it reveals the restrained emotions of a loving son jealous of his father's honor. Ferdinand had access to all of his father's papers. At the age of thirteen he accompanied Columbus on the last, the High Voyage, and participated in many of the events of which he wrote. The action of the narrative has the irresistible excitement of an adventure story: shipwreck, storms, and battles with mutineers or Indians.

Ferdinand's imaginative insight into the many-faceted personality of the Discoverer, and his artistry with words, make this biography, as Henry Vignaud has said, "the most important of our sources of information on the life of the discoverer of America.'

Benjamin Keen is Professor Emeritus of Latin American history at Northern Illinois University. He is the author of The Aztec Image in Western Thought (Rutgers University Press) and many other books.