(FLORIDA.) Histoire de la Conqueste de la Floride, par les Espagnols, sous Ferdinand de Soto. [24], 300 pages. 12mo, contemporary calf, minor wear; minimal wear to contents; modern French collector's bookplate on front pastedown, manuscript label on rear pastedown. Paris: Denys Thierry, 1685 First French edition of the extremely scarce Relaçam Verdadeira by the anonymous "Gentleman of Elvas," first published in 1557, and here translated by Samuel de Broë of Citry. The 1686 first English edition, "A Relation of the Invasion and Conquest of Florida," was based on this 1685 French edition.
Clark called the Elvas narrative "the most valuable document on the sixteenth-century history of the South. . . . It gives the first insight into the location of Indian tribes in the south, and into the customs and religious practices of the Southern Indians" (Old South 1:8). European Americana 685/90; Medina BHA 502n; Palau 256843n; Sabin 24864.