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Title page of 1781 German edition of The Discovery of
America, Volume I
The Discovery of America is a trilogy written by the
German author and educator Joachim Heinrich Campe
(1746-1818). It was originally published in 1781/82 as
Die Entdekkung von Amerika - ein angenehmes und
nützliches Lesebuch für Kinder und junge Leute and deals
with the discovery, early exploration and conquest of
America by focusing on one explorer in each volume:
Christopher Columbus is treated first, followed by Hernán
Cortés and finally Francisco Pizarro. The work is counted
among the first books of specific children's literature,
directly targeting children and adolescents as its main
audience, and Campe said to have "set the standard for
German children's literature."The trilogy is defined by its
author's involvement in the German educational
movement of philanthropinism and has been a great
success, also being translated into several languages.
Content
Volume I follows the explorer Christopher Columbus
(Kristoff Kolumbus in the German edition) from his
hometown Genoa and his first voyages to his encounter
with Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. After a description
of the voyage towards the West and the discovery of the
New World, the narrative relates Columbus’ first
encounter with Native Americans as well as the first
military conflicts.
In the second volume the reader is introduced to the
conquistador Hernán Cortés (Ferdinand Kortes) and his
exploration and conquest of Mexico. The explorations of
the Central American mainland are followed by
encounters with Native tribes, some of which become
Cortés’ allies in his later conquest of the Aztec empire.
After the death of the Aztec emperor Montezuma and the
takeover of the empire's capital Tenochtitlan, the narrative
gives a summary of the following subjugation of the rest
of Mexico and of Cortés’ troubles with people envious of
him.
Finally, the last volume deals with Francisco Pizarro
(Franz Pizarro) and the conquest of Peru and Chile. It
describes the journey along the west coast of South
America and the society of the Incas. Next to the
founding of Lima, the murder of the Inca Atahualpa, and
the siege and takeover of Cuzco the narrative also relates
the quarrels between Pizarro and some of the other
Spanish generals. The volume ends with Pizarro's death.
Publication history and editions
The trilogy is part of a larger work of Campe. It follows
his earlier books Kleine Kinderbibliothek (1779–84) and
Robinson der Jüngere (1779/80), translated into English
as Robinson the Younger, the New Robinson or Robinson
Junior, which is Campe's free adaptation of Daniel
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719). At the same time
Discovery presents a preparation for the subsequently
published first collection of travelogues, Erste Sammlung
interessanter und durchgängig zweckmäßig abgefasster
Reisebeschreibungen für die Jugend (1785–93, 12
volumes).
The first German edition was published in 1781
(Kolumbus) and 1782 (Kortes, Pizarro) in Hamburg; in
1790 it saw the third edition and in 1834 the fifteenth
authorised edition. The first French translation was
published as early as 1782, followed by translations into
English, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Hebrew and Yiddish.
At the same time there were several unauthorised reprints
available in German; Campe complained about these in a
letter to Emperor Joseph II in 1784.
Reception
Contemporaries of Discovery usually received the work
very positively. Louis, Prince of Prussia, expressed his
admiration for the first volume of Discovery in a letter to
Campe. He excuses his late reply to a previous letter by
saying that he first had to reread the book several times
and that he wished he possessed all those virtues of
Columbus.An anonymous reviewer in the German
Enlightenment journal Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek
praises Campe's choice of topic and its utility but wishes
for a more structured approach instead of the
narratives.Of the general criticism that the German new
humanists and others presented against philanthropinist
children's literature, Campe was usually exempt.Towards
the end of the nineteenth century, however, the dialogue
form had lost its appeal and in 1890 a revised German
edition was published that eliminated the dialogue and
solely related the narrative.
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