4to. xxxvi, 769 pp., frontispiece, one folding map: ‘The Iberian Peninsula to illustrate Spanish Islam’, editorial red cloth, lightly rubbed round edges, half title, gilt upper edges, title gilt on faded spine, translated with a biographical introduction & additional notes by Francis Griffin Stokes, chronological tables, index, occasional light foxing, bookplate of Frank Aikenhead verso front cover, otherwise copy in good condition, Chatto & Windus, first English edition, 1913.

Synopsis

First French edition appeared in 1861. A comprehensive history of Islamic Spain from AD 711 to 1110. This thoroughly researched account of Spain from the Umayyad to the Almoravid invasions also went through German and Spanish editions. Dozy had this to say about this book:’It is with extreme diffidence I give this history of the world. In it I traverse ground hitherto unturned, for -as I have elsewhere tried to demonstrate existing treaties on the subject are wholly valueless. They are all, in fact, based on the labours of Conde-on the labours, that is to say, of a writer who had but scanty materials at his disposal, who was unable, from the inadequacy of his linguistic attainments, to understand the documents to which he had access, and who lacked the historic sense’-(Quoted from Monroe, P. 58).