Recuerdos de Mexico: Memorias del Medico Ordinario del Emperador Maximiliano
Mexico City: 1870. 479,[3]pp., plus two plates including frontispiece portrait. Contemporary half calf and pebbled cloth, spine gilt, boards blind stamped. Light wear to spine ends and bands, corners bumped. Contemporary binder's ink stamp on front pastedown; unobtrusive contemporary manuscript annotation on title page. Light tanning and foxing; a few leaves creased at upper corner. About very good. Item #2928
First Mexican edition of this important account of the last year of Maximilian I's reign in Mexico, composed by his personal physician. Samuel Sigfried Karl Basch, a Jewish doctor from Vienna, came to Mexico in 1864 to support the cause of Maximilian and was initially put in charge of a military hospital at Puebla. However, soon he found himself appointed personal physician to the emperor, and became a close confidant of Maximilian, He was a constant companion of the famously frail emperor and was with him until his execution, narrowly escaping death himself. The present work, synthesized from Basch's surviving notes and his recollections, was first published in Germany in 1868, and provides a detailed personal narrative of the last days of Maximilian. The obvious interest of this account to Mexican readers no doubt effected its translation into Spanish for this edition.
Price: $750.00