SOURCE: Scott, Nina M. Introduction to Sab and Autobiography, pp. xi-xxvii. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993.

In the following essay, which introduces Scott's translations of Avellaneda's work, Scott provides an overview of Avellaneda's life and pertinent background information on Sab.

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga was born in Puerto Príncipe (today Camagüey), a provincial capital in central Cuba, in March 1814, the eldest child and only daughter of Manuel Gómez de Avellaneda and Francisca de Arteaga y Betancourt. Her father was of aristocratic Spanish lineage, an officer in the Spanish navy in charge of that area of the island (Cuba remained a Spanish colony until 1898). While stationed in Puerto Príncipe, he had met and married Doña Francisca, a wealthy Creole from a socially prominent family,¹ Gertrudis was the first of five children of this marriage, of whom only she and her younger...