William Robertson’s Influence on Early American Literature

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

E-ISSN: 1533-6247|14|1|37-43

ISSN: 0003-1615

Source: The Americas, Vol.14, Iss.1, 1957-07, pp. : 37-43

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Abstract

For early North America and particularly its first creative writers (to 1831), William Robertson (1721–1793) seems to have been the chief source for all things pertaining to the Spanish in the New World. King’s chaplain, principal of the University of Edinburgh, and historiographer-royal of Scotland, Robertson achieved world-wide fame with his histories of Scotland, the reign of Charles V, and with A History of America. Of this last, the first eight books, published in 1777, dealt with the discovery of the western hemisphere and the conquests of Mexico and Peru.