Among the many lives of Columbus that have been written, there exist some twenty-five in the English language. Of these two or three only have any historical or critical value. The mass of biographies, both English and American, are mere echoes or abridgments, in other forms of language, of the great work of Washington Irving, first published in 1828. This book was written in Spain, and based upon collections of documents (manuscript and printed) not previously used by biographers. Hence its value as the most copious and systematic life of Columbus which had appeared in any language. The finished and graceful style which characterizes all the works of its accomplished author gave it a high place in literature, which it has maintained for more than half a century, being constantly reprinted. Next in point of time to Irving, though treating Columbus with less fulness of detail, came the polished historian Prescott, whose "History of Ferdinand and Isabella" was published in 1837. This ardent and laborious scholar was, like Irving, constitutionally inclined to the optimistic view of his leading characters. To magnify the virtues and to minimize the faults of their heroes has always been the besetting sin of biographers. The pomp and picturesque circumstance of the Spanish court, the splendid administrative abilities of Ferdinand, the beauty, amiability, and devoted piety of Isabella, are depicted in glowing colors, but the crimes and cruelties which they sanctioned, while condemned upon one page, are softly extenuated upon others. Columbus appears as a romantic figure in history, the glory of whose successful discovery atones for his many failings. Of the original sources of information about Columbus the most important are: 1. The great collection of original documents printed in Spanish by Navarrete, in 1825-37, in five volumes, and partly reprinted in a French translation in 1828. These contain the precious letters of Columbus, many of which have been translated and recently published in English. 2. The "Historia general de las Indias," of Oviedo, first published in 1535. 3. The "Historia de las Indias," of the Spanish Bishop Las Casas, composed in 1527 to 1561, which remained in manuscript until 1875, when it was printed from the original Spanish. 4. The "Letters and the Decades of Peter Martyr," written in part contemporaneously with the discovery of America, and printed in Latin in 1530, and in English in 1555. 5. The "Historia de las Reyes Catolicos," of Andres Bernaldez. 6. The "Life of the Discoverer," by Ferdinand Columbus, first published in 1571 at Venice, in Italian. The last five writers had personal knowledge or intercourse with Columbus, while Las Casas, Oviedo, and Ferdinand had the advantage of residence in America, and intimate knowledge of the aborigines, and of the men and events of the period.