La traducción de Antonio Marqués y Espejo de la Historia de los naufragios (1803-1804): una empresa literariamente instructiva y económicamente provechosa

Abstract

During 1803 and 1804 Antonio Marques y Espejo published in five books Historia de los naufragios , a translation into Spanish of the French book Histoire des naufrages , which its Gallic author, Deperthes, had written several years before. With this collection about sea-related disasters, apart from choosing a very popular topic at that time, Marques tried to include an educational part that, covered with such an interesting layer of thriller and entertainment, should be included in every literary work, in his view. However, according to what can be concluded from the study of some of his annotations, we think that his main wish was to achieve commercial success by selling books, with the consequent economic profit.