[Buenos Aires Imprints]. An extraordinary archive of Buenos Aires imprints, 1807-1809

[BUENOS AIRES IMPRINTS]

A BOUND COLLECTION OF 224 SOUTH AMERICAN IMPRINTS, PRINTED IN BUENOS AIRES BETWEEN 1807 AND 1809

Three bound volumes, with 9 unbound or disbound pamphlets, small 4to. 224 separate imprints, including one Rio de Janiero imprint, two Spanish imprints, and two Buenos Aires duplicates, all items but one (the Rio de Janiero imprint at the beginning of the first volume, which is printed in Portuguese and French) printed in Spanish. Contemporary vellum, original leather ties, contemporary ink manuscript titles to spines; minor soling to vellum.

More extensive cataloguing available upon request.

An extraordinary archive of Buenos Aires imprints, composed primarily of newsletters printed at the Imprenta Niños Expòsitos between June 1807 and November 1809

The collection represents over one quarter of the entire recorded output of the Buenos Aires press during this period, and constitutes a major archive of news stories extracted from Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Brazilian sources and printed for Argentine readers during a pivotal period in the region's history. The news accounts, together with a significant number of manifestos, poems, proclamations, and decrees, cover the invasions and defeats of the British at Montevideo and Buenos Aires in 1807, the collapse of the Spanish monarchy in 1808, Spanish efforts against Napoleonic rule, and the battles and effects of the Napoleonic wars in Europe and the Americas—crucial events in the formation of Argentine self-determination and eventual independence from Spain. The first and third volumes of the collection are largely devoted to newsletters, while the second volume contains a number of separate pamphlets, manifestos, and political statements.

Virtually all of the imprints in the collection are listed in Guillermo Furlong's authoritative Historia Y Bibliografía De Las Primeras Imprentas Rioplatenses. Exceptions include an anti-Napoleonic manifesto printed in Rio de Janeiro (vol. I, item 1); two pamphlets printed for the Spanish government-in-exile at Cadiz (vol II, items 84 and 89); and two items not bearing a publisher's imprint, but for which context, paper, and printing style all suggest a Buenos Aires origin (vol I, item 56, and vol. III, item 71).