William Hickling Prescott

Prescott, William Hickling (1796–1859), U.S. historian. Despite the handicap of near blindness, he became an authority on Spain and the Spanish conquest of America. His History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (1837), History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847) became classics, admired for their narrative skill as well as their historical rigor.