A Scotswoman in Love with Mexico: the Work of Madame Fanny Calderón de la Barca

Abstract

Life in Mexico, by Madame Fanny Calderón de la Barca, is an essential text for understanding Nineteenth-century Mexico, particularly between the years 1840 and 1841. Its richness consists of being the first work of travel literature in the country written by a woman additionally to the first-hand descriptions of landscapes, places, characters, customs, and food. The text also has the merit of having transcended despite the difficulties experienced by the author as a woman at a time and in a place where her gender was not given credit and due to the ups and downs of politics, both in Mexico as in Spain and the United States, countries where she lived, as well as due to the remarkable exercise of understanding a world opposed to her