Caballero, Fernán

Cecilia Böhl de Faber (Morges, Switzerland 1796 - Seville, 1877), also known under the pseudonym Fernán Caballero, was the daughter of the German Hispanophile Juan Nicolás Böhl de Faber. At the age of nineteen, she married a young infantry captain who died in Puerto Rico the following year. In 1822 she married the Marquis of Arco Hermoso and lived with him in Seville. She later moved to the countryside, from which she drew the material for her novels and her moral paintings. After the Marquis' death she married for the third and last time. Due to her precarious financial situation, she published in 1849La Gaviota. This novel, originally written in French, was immediately considered literary worthy of Walter Scott. Her other works includeLa Farisea (1853); Lagrimas (1853) and The family of Alvareda (1856). Cecilia Böhl de Faber is considered a driving force for the renewal of the Spanish novel.