To judge by the increasing number of reprintings and new editions, complete and abridged, Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s colorful narrative of the conquest of Mexico has achieved the status of a classic. In Mexican letters particularly it seems to be assuming a place not entirely unlike that of Don Quixote in Spain’s literature and to enjoy something like its universal acceptance. If the Verdadera historia lacks the philosophical profundity, the lofty idealism, and the satire of Cervantes’ great novel, it does have a certain Sancho Panza down-to-earth quality in its realistic descriptions of scenes and actors of the epic conquest won by the dauntless Cortés, of whom the author was a kind of squire. If the Castilian masterpiece owed its origin to the romances of chivalry, the episodic structure of Bernal Díaz’s chronicle and his manner of recounting also owed much to the same inspiration. Indeed, this soldier of Cortés was the only chronicler who specifically mentioned these works of fiction, thus implicitly acknowledging their influence. If he dealt with very mundane matters in conversational and unvarnished prose, with the first person singular pronoun much in evidence, the element of the ideal symbolized by Don Quixote was not entirely lacking in the Verdadera historia. Love of glory, exaltation of Christianity, loyalty to the king, reverence for the theory of empire, and even chivalric gallantry are discernible in Bernal Díaz’s lusty pages. And his story is more than history; it is an intense reliving of a stirring past.
Perhaps it is such qualities as these that account for the many editions in Spanish and in translation that are appearing in fairly rapid succession of late. If, up to 1904, only about ten reprintings are recorded, since then over a score of editions have been published in Spanish, not to mention versions in English, French, and other languages. In the United States at least two different abridged translations have achieved the distinction of a paperback edition. Now, to crown all others, a handsome, de luxe volume edited by Federico Gómez de Orozco, Guadalupe Pérez San Vicente, and Carlos Saba Bergamín, comes forth from a Mexico City press. Its large format has its pages garnished by scores of sepia tinted line drawings by José Bardasano, depicting with meticulous care for detail many scenes and incidents of the Bernal Díaz story. Numerous are the addenda of this edition, including, along with an introduction, a short biographical dictionary of Aztec figures mentioned in the text, a chronology of the Aztec dynasty, a glossary of archaic words, a bibliography of the conquest of Mexico literature, a list of the various editions of the Verdadera historia, and separate indices of names and places.
Abridgement of the text is substantial para salvar algunas de las innumerables repeticiones en que el Cronista incurre, the jacket reports. Perhaps the whole is reduced by over a third. Chapter numbers are omitted but lengthy headings are retained to give a novelesque continuity to the narrative. All told it is a splendid joya bibliográfica likely to delight the eye of the most exacting bibliophile and to please the most ardent Bernal Díaz fan.
