“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face”. Reconstructing the trajectory of Carmen Espejo Valverde

Abstract

In spite of the difficulties and determinants that the nineteenth century society inflict on the female writer, the XIX was, beyond a doubt, the Golden Age of women eclosion in the field of humanities. A great number of women with artistic interests could express the latest through the writen word. However, most of them have remained buried in an absolute oblivion, such is the case of Carmen Espejo Valverde (1837?-1867), who was very well connected within the literary groups of the period and who took part in common strategies of those times as for instance, the contributions to women’s literary magazines, the cultivation of memory books, the compositions dedicated to the sobereign in search of sponsorship, etc., but whose premature death interrupted abruptly her active career. Her example is also remarkable since she was reclaimed during the following decades through laudable initiatives, as the one lead by her son in law, Antonio Serra Morant, a singular intelectual nominated up to four times to the Nobel Prizes.