Zorro (novel)

Zorro

First edition cover
Author	Isabel Allende
Original title	El Zorro: Comienza la leyenda
Translator	Margaret Sayers Peden
Country	Chile
Language	Spanish
Series	Zorro
Genre	Adventure, Historical Novel
Published	2005 (HarperCollins)
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback) and (audio-CD)
Pages	382 p
ISBN

Zorro is a 2005 novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende. Its subject is the pulp hero Diego de la Vega, better known as El Zorro (The Fox), who was featured in an early 20th-century novel.

The novel takes the form of a biography and was the first origin story for this legendary character. In terms of material, it is a prequel to Johnston McCulley's 1919 novella The Curse of Capistrano, which first featured the character of Zorro. The story incorporates details from a variety of works that have featured the pulp hero, including the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro.

Allende's story is split into six parts, each part dealing with one stage of Diego de la Vega's life, with the last part serving as the epilogue. The novel chronicles Diego's upbringing as well as the origins of his Zorro alter ego. He goes to America to find his dream.

Captain Alejandro de la Vega, a seasoned Spanish soldier, is sent to the San Gabriel mission run by Padre Mendoza, an experienced Franciscan priest, due to a series of savage attacks at other missions. Led by a warrior chief named Chief Gray Wolf, the Indians want to destroy the San Gabriel mission, the most successful mission in Alta California. Alejandro, aided by Padre Mendoza and a few Indian converts, defeats the Indians; the colonists are successful in hurting Chief Gray Wolf. However, as they contemplate the chief's fate, they find out she is a woman.

She is Toypurnia, a young Indian woman. She recuperates in the mission with Alejandro's help. Alejandro then goes to Pedro Fages, the governor of California. Here he decides to allow Toypurnia to be a lady-in-waiting to Eulalia de Callis, Fages' rich and stubborn wife. After three years, Alejandro meets Toypurnia, who was renamed Regina, at a lavish party to celebrate the arrival of Pedro Fages, who has earlier resigned from his post and was on his way to Mexico with Eulalia. He proposes marriage to Regina and she accepts. The two are wed by Padre Mendoza, and Fages bequeaths a large acreage of land to Alejandro. He retires from the military and becomes a hacienda owner, and later an alcalde.

Regina befriends Ana, a young convert who is assigned to care for her. Regina has a complicated birth, spending fifty hours in labor, and requiring Padre Mendoza to deliver the baby, whom Regina names Diego. The infant boy is baptized on the spot.