Caballero, Fernán, 1796-1877

Fernán Caballero, the pseudonym of Cecilia Francisca Josefa de Arrom (1796-1877) was born at Morges, Switzerland, the daughter of Johan Nikols Böhl von Faber, a German merchant from Hamburg, married to an Andalusian. Her father was also editor of Floresta de rimas antiguas castellanas (1821-1828), and the Teatro espanol anterior a Lopé de Vega (1832). Educated principally at Hamburg, Fernán Caballero visited Spain at the close of the Napoleonic wars, married, and settled there. Her father had stimulated her interest in Spain's medieval and classical literature, and she began to write of her adopted country. She is famous for her defense of the traditional virtues of Spain - Catholic, monarchist, moral and rural - against the growing strength of nineteenth century liberalism.

After becoming interested in her mother's native Andalusia, Fernán Caballero collected the folklore of the area and published a number of works in which the local customs were the background. The most notable of these were the Cuadros de costumbres, Relaciones and La familia de Alvareda. Although she claimed that she was merely the recorder of fact, her novel Clemencia (1852) is largely autobiographical.

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