Nevertheless he resolved to emulate
Gibbon, whose "Autobiography" had impressed him, and to make
himself "an historian in the best sense of the term." He studied
arduously in Europe, with the help of secretaries, and by 1826,
after a long hesitation, decided upon a "History of the Reign of
Ferdinand and Isabella." In ten years the three volumes were
finished. "Pursuing the work in this quiet, leisurely way,
without over-exertion or fatigue," wrote Prescott, "or any sense
of obligation to complete it in a given time, I have found it a
continual source of pleasure." It was published at his own
expense on Christmas Day, 1837, and met with instantaneous
success. "My market and my reputation rest principally with
England," he wrote in 1838--a curious footnote, by the way, to
Emerson's Phi Beta Kappa Address of the year before. But America
joined with England, in praising the new book. Then Prescott
turned to the "Conquest of Mexico," the "Conquest of Peru," and
finally to his unfinished "History of the Reign of Philip II." He
had, as Dean Milman wrote him, "the judgment to choose noble
subjects.
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