Cervantes’s Biographers

As Cervantes became a famous writer during his own lifetime, information about the life and times of the man who composed the works that carry his name became in high demand. However, more than 100 years passed after his death before the first comprehensive biography was written. This chapter provides the reader with an overview of the most important biographers of Miguel de Cervantes, beginning with Gregorio Mayáns y Siscar in the early eighteenth century, and including Vicente de los Ríos, Juan Antonio Pellicer y Pilares, Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Jerónimo Morán, James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Luis Astrana Marín, and concluding with Jean Canavaggio, contributor to this volume. The chapter lists these critics’ works and aims to analyse and meticulously compare all the major biographies in order to determine the vision obtained by the biographers of the hero of Lepanto.