Palou, Francisco

Relación histórica de la vida y apostólicas tareas del Venerable Padre Fray Junípero Serra, y de las misiones que fundó en la California septentrional, y nuevos establecimientos del Monterey. Mexico: Felipe de Zúñiga y Ontiveros, 1787



8vo (7 3/4 x 5 3/4 in.; 197 x 145 mm). Engraved folding map, engraved portrait of Serra; a few scattered marginal spots. Contemporary limp vellum, manuscript title on spine; possibly a brand effaced from top edge, in a blue half-morocco drop-box, gilt-stamped title on spine.

Charles Smith (engraved armorial bookplate)

Cowan II, p. 472; Graff 3179; Mathes, California Colonial Bibliography 64; Medina, Mexico, 7731; Streeter sale 2450; Wagner, Spanish Southwest 168; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West 208, and I:128;Zamorano 80, no. 59

First edition, first issue, "The most famous and the most extensive of the early works that relate to Upper California" (Cowan).

This biography of Fray Junipero Serra, written by his student and companion, is based on letters written by Serra, and is in some instances the only source for the history of the settlement of California.

The map of California is of interest "because it seems to be the first on which a boundary line was drawn between Lower and Upper California" (Wheat). It shows the extent of European settlement at that time, eighteen years after the Spanish occupation, and locates only nine missions of the eventual twenty-one. The portrait of Serra by Diego Troncoso is called the first published portrait of a European living in Alta California (Mathes).

This is the first issue, with the phrase "A expensas de varios bienhechores" just above the imprint on the title-page, and the catchword "CAR" on the last page of the index.