The University of Florida Press in cooperation with the little-known and hardly active Florida Quadricentennial Commission has reissued various works of rare Floridiana. This book was probably written in 1567 by the brother-in-law of Menéndez. It was not published until 1893 when it was included in Eugenio Ruidíaz’ study of Florida and Menéndez. In 1923 it was published in English, translated and annotated by the late Jeannette Thurber Connor under the auspices of the defunct Florida State Historical Society of which the celebrated James Robertson was a guiding spirit. It was he who selected Mrs.
Thurber Connor for the task. Her scholarship as demonstrated in this and other Hispanic works was flawless. The publications of the Florida State Historical Society, which ceased with the great depression, have become rare and it is good to know that they are being reproduced. Lyle N. McAlister’s twenty-five pages of introduction constitute an annotated scholarly essay which deals with the historiography of early Spanish Florida. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés is a useful study. The whole book with its beautiful presentation and excellent printing is therefore highly recommended.
