Lazarillo De Tormes [Christmas Summary Classics]

DIEGO DE MENDOZA
Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza's career was hardly of a kind that would be ordinarily associated with a lively romance of vagabondage. A grandee of high birth, an ambassador of the Emperor Charles V., an accomplished soldier and a learned historian--such was the creator of the hungry rogue Lazarillo, and the founder of the "picaresque" school of fiction, or the romance of roguery, which is not yet extinct. Don Diego de Mendoza, born early in 1503, was educated at the University of Salamanca, and spent most of the rest of his days in courts and camps. He died at Madrid in April 1575. Although written during Mendoza's college days, "Lazarillo de Tormes" did not appear until 1533, when it was published anonymously at Antwerp. During the following year it was reprinted at Bruges, but it fell under the ban of the Inquisition, and subsequent editions were considerably expurgated. Such was its popularity that it was continued by inferior authors after Mendoza's death.