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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE, BY THE TRANSLATOR. Gaviota (sea-gull) is the sobriquet which Andalusians give to harsh-tongued, flighty women of unsympathetic mien and manners; and such was applied to the heroine of this tale by a youthful, malicious tormentor?Momo. Ftrnan Caballero is, indeed, but a pseudonym: the author of this novel, passing under that name, is understood to be a lady, partly of German descent. Her father was Don Juan Nicholas Bohl dc Faber, to whose erudition Spain is indebted for a collection of ancient poetry. Cecelia, the daughter of Bohl do Faber, was born at Morgcs, in Switzerland, in 1707, and subsequently married to a Spanish gentleman. Indeed, since the death of her first husband, she lias successively contracted two other marriages, and is now a widow. Wo havo it on tho authority of the Edinburgh Review, that tho novels of this gifted authoress were published at the expense of the Queen. Tho same authority remarks, Hence it might have been foretold, that of the various kinds of novels, the romantic and descriptive was the-least repugnant to the old Spanish spirit; and that in order for a writersuccessfully to undertake such a novel, it would be necessary for him to have a passionate attachment to the national manners and characteristics, and a corresponding dislike to the foreign and new?such are the qualities we find united in Fcrnan Caballcro: La Gaviota is perhaps the finest story in the volumes Its advent is a real literary event: the most sevc.'O critics have dissected this new work, and have unhesitatingly proclaimed the authoress to be the Spanish Walter Scott. Among the painters of manners, the best, without doubt, are the Spanish writers. We are certain to find there truth, joined to a richness and piquancy of details; and, above all, a spirited ...