Legends of the Conquest of Spain by Washington Irving

This sweeping historical romance opens with a warning: Spain's conquest by the Saracens cannot be told as plain fact alone, because its history is woven with myth, poetry, and legend. From that premise emerges a dramatic chronicle of Gothic Spain, where Celtic, Roman, and Gothic inheritances shape a proud, warlike nation whose glory is already shadowed by corruption. King Witiza's reign brings tyranny, religious scandal, disarmament, and political decay, while the young Don Roderick rises from hardship to overthrow him and seize Toledo in a blaze of promise. Roderick's triumph soon darkens into the same suspicion and vengeance that ruined his predecessor. His court glitters with pageantry, yet the kingdom is hollowed out and left vulnerable. Romance enters through the Moorish princess Elyata, rescued near Denia, brought in splendor to Toledo, converted, and married to Roderick in a union of chivalry and religious spectacle. But Count Julian, trusted governor of Ceuta, becomes the hidden force of betrayal that leads to Spain's catastrophic defeat by Taric. The legend closes in mourning, with Roderick remembered as the last king of the Goths, and with Toledo's caves and buried mysteries preserving the haunted grandeur of Spain's ancient past. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.