Domingo Figarola-Caneda, bibliographer, biographer, compiler and editor of the Countess of Merlín and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

Abstract

Domingo Figarola-Caneda (Cuba 1852-1926) was a journalist, bibliographer, humanist, and the first director of Cuba’s National Library. Amongst his biographies, bibliographies, and essays of different nature, there is reference material on the Condesa de Merlín and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. This material implies not only the recovery of texts written by two female literary personalities of the utmost importance for the island of Cuba –at a time when women writers of the 19th century hardly received any critical attention–, but also the appreciation of their personal writings in very early dates. This article discusses the specificity of Figarola-Caneda’s work regarding these texts, analyzing at the same time the ideological value of his proposal.