The Discovery Of America With Some Account Of Ancient America And The Spanish Conquest, By John Fiske, In Two Volumes. Boston And New York, Houghton, Mifflin And Company, the Riverside Press Cambridge. Volume I has 1896 on the title page and 1892 on the copyright page, with a frontis portrait of John Fiske, “fifteenth thousand” on the copyright page, a fourteen-page Preface (v - xviii), sixteen pages of Contents (xix - xxxiv) with some uncut pages, a two-page list of Illustrations, and 516 pages of text. Volume II has 1897 on the title page and 1892 on the copyright page, with a fold-out frontis map of the “New Discoveries drawn … in the year 1500 by the pilot, Juan De La Cosa, “sixteenth thousand” on the copyright page, nineteen pages of Contents (iii - xxi) and a two-page list of Illustrations, 569 pages of text, four Appendices (A, B, C, D) and a thirty-one page Index, with some uncut pages, for a total of 631 pages altogether. Both are 3/4 bound, with five raised bands, gilt titles on burgundy labels, six gilt-ruled compartments with gilt floral devices, marbled boards, marbled endpapers, and the top edges are gilt. John Fiske (1842 - 1901) was born Edmund Fiske Green in Hartford, Connecticut and was an American philosopher and historian. His father was a newspaper editor in Hartford and New York City, and John lectured at Harvard and lived in Cambridge, Mass. He was heavily influenced by Herbert Spencer’s views on evolution, and he died in Gloucester, Mass. in 1901 from overwork. The books are 8vo. and measure 7 7/8 x 5 3/8 in. wide, the bindings are tight and the pages are clean, with light rubbing on the edges and at the tips, and the books are an attractive set for someone who collects early American history. #1637 #19