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Mercaderes Ingleses en Alicante en el Siglio XVII

Scholarly edition of the letterbook of a seventeenth-century English merchant (Richard Houncell), which Gauci co-edited with J. I. Martinez Ruiz, of the University of Seville. Gauci arranged/supervised the transcription and selection of the English letters (some 60% of the collection of 415 letters). Gauci also undertook background research into Houncell’s career, and contributed 5,000 words to the introduction (essentially, pp. 17-28), which were subsequently translated into Spanish.

A scholarly edition of the correspondence of Richard Houncell, an English merchant based in the Spanish port of Alicante in the mid-seventeenth century. Few such collections have appeared in print, and the editors provide an introduction to provide important contexts for understanding the 415 letters in this volume. Gauci provides an account of Houncell’s life, supplementing information from the letters with primary research based on sources from UK archives (pp. 17-29). Martinez Ruiz illustrates the Spanish context with a full account of the development of Alicante’s trade within the seventeenth-century Mediterranean, and of the English merchant group in the port.