Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

GASPAR MELCHOR DE JOVELLANOS (Spain, 1744 - 1811).
"To his compatriots", 1811.
Leather binding.
Measurements: 21 x 15,5 cm.

Copy of "To his compatriots. Memoir refuting the slanders spread against the members of the Central Junta, a work by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos published in A Coruña in 1811, in the printing house of Francisco Cándido Pérez Prieto. The volume constitutes an important political and intellectual testimony of the Spain of the early 19th century, in the context of the War of Independence against the Napoleonic occupation.

The work was written by Jovellanos during the last years of his life as a defense of the actions of the Central Board, an organization created to coordinate the Spanish resistance against France. In this text, the author responds to the accusations and criticisms directed against the members of this institution and exposes his own political and patriotic ideas in one of the most convulsive moments of contemporary Spanish history.

The copy preserves a flexible parchment binding, characteristic of many Spanish editions of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with a handwritten or labeled title on the spine. The material sobriety of the edition reflects the difficult political and economic circumstances of the period, marked by war, institutional instability and the scarcity of typographical resources.

An essential figure of the Spanish Enlightenment, Jovellanos played a decisive role as a writer, jurist, reformer and political thinker. His works represent one of the greatest intellectual efforts to modernize Spain through education, economic reform and institutional strengthening. This volume has, in addition to bibliographical interest, a remarkable historical value as a document of the Spanish political crisis during the Napoleonic invasion and the birth of contemporary liberal thought in Spain.