The ministry of the Count-Duke of Olivares (1621–43) is a key period in the history of modern Spain. From 1978 to 1981 Professor John H. Elliott, who was then preparing his well-known biography of the Count-Duke, published two volumes of some of the royal favourite’s most important state papers and letters with the help of José Francisco de la Peña. The book, with careful annotations and accurate preliminary studies on each document, soon became an essential source for understanding that period. With the original Alfaguara edition long out of print, the two volumes have now been combined into a new single-volume edition, thoroughly revised and updated by professors John H. Elliott and Fernando Negredo. It is a fundamental work of permanent value to the study of seventeenth-century Spain and has been complemented with a new volume compiling the Count-Duke’s hitherto unpublished correspondence with the Cardinal-Infante.

Sir John H. Elliott (1930- 2022) was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. A historian of Spain, Europe, and the Americas in the Modern Age, he published many works including Imperial Spain (1963), The Revolt of the Catalans (1963), The Count-Duke of Olivares (1986), Empires of the Atlantic World (2006), and, more recently, History in the Making (2012). He received various prizes, among them the Prince of Asturias award for Social Sciences and the Balzan prize for History.

José Francisco de la Peña (1945–1995) completed his higher studies at the University of Seville. An assistant to Sir John H. Elliott at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study for several years, he was his collaborator in preparing the first edition of the Memoriales y cartas del Conde Duque de Olivares (Alfaguara, 1978–81).

Fernando Negredo, a specialist in the reign of Philip IV, has lectured in Modern History at the Carlos III and Complutense universities in Madrid. He has published more than fifty studies related to this period in different languages, such as Los predicadores de Felipe IV (2006) and De copistas y censuras. Una versión íntegra del memorial de 1637 del Conde Duque de Olivares (2009). He has published more than fifty related works in different languages, such as Los predicadores de Felipe IV (2006) and De copistas y censuras. Una versión íntegra del memorial de 1637 del Conde Duque de Olivares (2009).