by Leandro Fernández de Moratín

Leandro Fernández de Moratín was born in 1760 in Madrid. His father was Nicolás Fernández de Moratín (1737-80), a preeminent literary figure of eighteenth-century Spain. Although the younger Moratín did not attend university, he followed his father, uncle, and grandfather in working as a jeweler. Writing in his spare time, Leandro began attracting favorable attention in the 1770s. He traveled in 1787 to Paris as the secretary of the Count of Cabarrús, a diplomat in the service of the Spanish king, Charles III (1716-88). Upon his return from Paris, Moratín wrote a musical version of the first of his five extant plays, El barón (The Baron), in which he already treats his favorite theme of unequal marriages between affluent, aged men and very young women of...