(Texas) Espinosa, Isidro Felix de. El Peregrino Septentrional Atlante: Delineado en la Vida del Venerable Padre F. Antonio Margil de Jesus, .... Mexico: Por Joseph Bernardo de Hogal, 1737. FIRST EDITION.
8vo - 8" x 5-7/8". [38], 456, [4] pp., plus [1] full-page leaf of plates. Bound in contemporary Spanish limp vellum with original leather ties intact; title and geometric decoration executed in contemporary manuscript to the spine panel. Text-block edges stained red. Title page printed in red and black within a typographical ornamental border. Illustrated with a full-page woodcut dedication to St. Antonio de Padua, repeating woodcut head- and tail-pieces, and text arranged in two columns within single-line typographical borders.
The structural and surface condition of the volume is FINE. The contemporary vellum binding remains supple and securely attached. Internal defects are restricted to a minor loss at the lower fore-edge corner of the front free endpaper and a similar small corner loss on leaves 71-72, neither affecting the text matrix. The text block is crisp, bright, and free of typical colonial foxing or worming.
Provenance: From the distinguished library of Dr. John Talbot Gernon, with his gilt-stamped morocco bookplate affixed to the front pastedown.
Franciscan Missiology, Texas Foundations, and Inquisition Censorship
This work stands as the definitive contemporary biography of the venerable Franciscan missionary Father Antonio Margil de Jesús (1657–1726), a monumental figure in the spiritual and political expansion of New Spain. Compiled by his fellow Franciscan and travel companion, Father Isidro Félix de Espinosa, the narrative draws directly upon first-hand observations made during their joint expedition into the internal provinces between 1716 and 1719. Chapters 22 through 24 provide crucial primary accounts of the permanent re-establishment of Spanish authority in East Texas, documenting the founding of missions among the Hasinai Caddo, including Nuestra Señora de los Dolores and San Miguel de los Adaes, which served as strategic buffers against French encroachment from Louisiana.
This specific copy represents a highly significant, uncensored survival of the first edition. Shortly after publication by Joseph Bernardo de Hogal in 1737, the Holy Office of the Inquisition objected to passage variants on pages 426 and 427, which invoked the name and imagery of the apocalyptic angel Uriel—a figure external to the canonical Roman Catholic tradition. Consequently, the vast majority of extant copies in commerce and institutional holdings feature these pages heavily defaced, excised, or systematically blacked out by contemporary ink. In this copy, the text remains entirely unmarred and readable in its original, unaltered state.
Bibliographic Status, Census, and Scarcity
El Peregrino Septentrional Atlante is a recognized keystone of borderlands bibliography. It is designated as a foundational text across all standard references of Western Americana, cited as Fifty Texas Rarities No. 5; Thomas W. Streeter's Bibliography of Texas; Jenkins, Basic Texas Books 59A; Wagner, Spanish Southwest 102; Howes E-184; and Graff 1260.
While the title is represented in major research institutions focusing on the Spanish borderlands, copies preserving the contemporary vellum infrastructure, original ties, and an un-inked state of the censored sheets are exceptionally scarce. This duplicate survival constitutes a critical preservation of eighteenth-century Mexican typography and early colonial Texas history.
A MAGNIFICENT, STRUCTURALLY COMPLETE FIRST EDITION COPY IN ITS CONTEMPORARY VELLUM BINDING, PRESERVING THE CENSOR-PRONE TEXT UNTOUCHED, FORMING A REQUISITE ARTIFACT FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH COLLECTIONS IN COLONIAL MEXICANA AND NORTH AMERICAN MISSIONARY HISTORY.
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