Rindis.com

Along with all the other cheap ebook reprints out there, there is a company (unnamed, so far as I can tell), who specializes in distributing the files from Project Gutenberg in ebook format (with a fairly distinctive two-tone cover pattern). This means that unlike the other two companies I’ve dealt with recently, the number of typos is low, but there are still formatting glitches. Notably, all the page number tags in the Gutenberg files are still in-line here. (Since there are notes that reference these pages, it is of use.) Occasionally, the line breaks of the original file have not been properly removed, but this is a handful of times, and generally the formatting is good.

This particular book was originally published in in French in the late 18th century, and given here in a 1840 translation, which means it is somewhat… dated. (Especially as the accepted Anglicizations of the names have changed quite a bit.) The author’s name was only given as “Florian”, which took some investigation to find out was Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian.

At any rate, it’s not a bad book, and is one of the first Western works to take a more sympathetic view of Moorish civilization (not entirely sympathetic, however). In fact, it is two works in one, as the final part of the book is a separate overview of Muslim history in general by “Rev S. Greene” (included in the 1840 book). That said, unless you’re interested in the historiography of Spain, there must be better things to read, though I don’t know what they would be (which is why I got this in the first place).