A RADICAL TEXTBOOK FOR NEWLY-INDEPENDENT LATIN AMERICANS. 2 vols in 2, 8vos. (4), 302 pp, (5); (2), 325 pp, (5). Bound in contemporary calf, spine gilt with red title label (“Manual Mejorada”). With contemporary ink stamp of the ‘Sociedad de Amigos’ on verso of final leaf of Vol I, given as a mark of authenticity. Wormtrack affecting pastedown but hardly touching title-page of Vol I; otherwise a pleasant, unsophisticated copy in a contemporary Peruvian binding. Rare first American edition of this remarkable legal textbook composed specifically for use in the fledgling independent republics of Latin America during the first half of the 19th century. The text was printed for the first time in Paris in 1827, and the present edition is both its first printing anywhere in the Americas and its second appearance overall. OCLC shows just seven copies worldwide, four of them in the US (Yale, GW Law, LC, and Harvard). Little seems to be known of the author, but in his preface to the first edition, Ochoa rails against “political and religious despotism” and salutes “the individuals of all classes in these new republics who have risen as if by magic from the bosom of shame, seeing themselves elevated to the dignity of free men”. Celebrating the loss of Spain’s American dominions in the name of liberty and justice were evidently sentiments to which Ochoa could not publicly sign his name, and he is identified only by his initials on the title-page of both the Paris and Arequipa editions of the Manual. The ’Sociedad de Amigos’ who were responsible for adapting the work for Peru seem to have harbored the same anti-colonial, anti-clerical spirit. As far as we have traced, no direct comparison has ever been conducted between the Paris original and the present Peruvian ‘corrected and improved’ edition. The latter text proves to be rife with footnotes added by the Sociedad de Amigos, distinguishable by their smaller font size. For example, on p. 38 a footnote declares that the age of majority in Peru has been proclaimed as 21, rather than 25 as in Spain; and on p. 43 we find a lengthy critical note: “Es muy ridiculo que dé al juramento la fuerza de confirmar y hacer valida una venta que antes no lo era; como si el que indujo á la mujer á enajenar la dote, no la induciria tambien á confirmar la enajenacion con juramento”. On p. 23, strong emphasis is added on the separation of church and state in matrimonial affairs: “Las republicas de America no estan obligadas á admitir lo dispuesto por los Concilios, mas que en la parte de fe, costumbres y disciplina esencial.” The present edition was printed in Arequipa, a city of major importance during Peru’s struggles for independence. Although the north of the country had declared independence in 1821, Arequipa remained under Spanish control until the Battle of Ayacucho in 1824. The dedicatee, Antonio Gutiérrez de La Fuente (1796-1878), was a strong Bolivarist and the first governor of Arequipa following independence; in 1826, he briefly considered breaking away from the rest of the country but instead lead the movement to overthrow the government in Lima. * cf Palau y Dulcet 149727 (but this edition unrecorded); and cf eg. Núñez, El código napoleónico y su recepción en América Latina (1997), p. 166.