William Hickling Prescott

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1796 and later based in Boston, William Hickling Prescott built a remarkable literary career despite severe visual impairment. He studied at Harvard, married Susan Amory, and gradually devoted himself to historical writing with a special focus on Spain and the early Spanish empire.

Prescott is best remembered for History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (1837), The History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), A History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), and his unfinished History of the Reign of Philip II. Readers and later historians admired the scale of his research and the energy of his storytelling, and he was widely regarded in his own time as one of America’s leading men of letters.

He died in Boston in 1859, but his reputation endured because he helped set a higher standard for serious historical writing in the United States. Even now, his work stands out for combining careful use of sources with a strong sense of drama and character.