Fernan Caballero
| Fernán Caballero | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Native name | Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber |
| Born |
24 December 1796 Morges, Vaud |
| Died | 7 April 1877 (aged 80) |
| Language | Spanish |
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Genre | Novel |
Fernán Caballero (24 December 1796, Morges, Vaud – 7 April 1877) was the pseudonym adopted from the name of a village in the province of Ciudad Real by the Spanish novelist Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber.
Born at Morges in Switzerland, she was the daughter of Johann Nikolaus Böhl von Faber, a Hamburg merchant, who lived long in Spain, married a native of Cádiz, and is creditably known to students of Spanish literature as the editor of the Floresta de rimas antiguas castellanas (1821–1825), and the Teatro español anterior a Lope de Vega (1832). Educated principally at Hamburg, she visited Spain in 1815, and in 1816 married Antonio Planells y Bardaxi, an infantry captain of bad character. In the following year Planells was killed in action, and in 1822 the young widow married Francisco Ruiz del Arco, Marqués de Arco Hermoso, an officer in one of the Spanish household regiments.
Upon the death of Arco Hermoso in 1835, the marquesa found herself in straitened circumstances, and in less than two years she married Antonio Arrom de Ayala, a man considerably her junior. Arrom was appointed consul in Australia, engaged in business enterprises and made money; but unfortunate speculations drove him to commit suicide in 1859. Ten years earlier the name of Fernán Caballero became famous in Spain as the author of La Gaviota. The writer had already published in German an anonymous romance, Sole (1840), and curiously enough the original draft of La Gaviota was written in French. This novel, translated into Spanish by José Joaquín de Mora, appeared as the feuilleton of El Heraldo (1849), and was received with marked favor. Eugenio de Ochoa, a prominent critic of the day, ratified the popular judgment, and hopefully proclaimed the writer to be a rival of Walter Scott. No other Spanish book of the 19th century has obtained such instant and universal recognition. It was translated into most European languages, and, though it scarcely seems to deserve the intense enthusiasm which it excited, it is the best of its author's works, with the possible exception of La Familia de Alvareda (which was written, first of all, in German).
...
Wikipedia