The Bancroft Library As Material For Pacific States History

Excerpt from The Bancroft Library as Material for Pacific States History The colonial period of Mexico has never been written, except in Spanish, and this very imperfectly, without research and critique, and altogether unworthy of translation. The repub lican period is more thoroughly covered by native writers, but the versions are so varied and biased in different directions, as to serve only for material to the impartial student. Foreign works are quite superficial, or cover chiefly certain periods. A connected history for the three epochs is therefore absolutely needed; and it can be written only by Mr Bancroft, whose collection of material for all is, beyond all comparison, the most complete in existence. Indeed, no writer so far has had access to a tenth of the volumes possessed by him. Agents in the chief book marts of the world have for over twenty years been on the watch to buy whatever was needful to fill gaps in his collection. Large as it was in 1869, Mr Bancroft then secured of the rarest and most valuable volumes from the andrade-maximilian library of Mexico, the-choicest and most complete in that fore most among latin-american States. Another lot he Obtained from a second smaller collection, lost to Mexico, like the pre ceding, through the same revolution. Caleb Cushing's library yielded many valuable books, as did a number of libraries sold during the last dozen years, including that of the Mexican savant, Ramirez, whose collection must rank next to the An drade. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Report for 1871/1873-1903/1905 contains a list of additions to the miscellaneous and law departments.