by Rosalía de Castro

Rosalía de Castro was born in 1837 in the northwestern region of Spain known as Galicia, where she lived much of her life. As the child of an unwed mother, she resided for most of her youth with various members of her extended family until she was finally reunited with her mother in 1852 in Santiago de Compostela, the city of her birth. One of her first collections of poetry, To My Mother, was written and published privately in response to her mother’s death in 1862. Though her formal education— she studied French, drawing, music, and acting— was limited, Castro showed an aptitude for writing in her early years. After moving to Madrid at the age of 19, she published her first collection of poetry, The Flower. During her brief period of residence in Madrid, she also married the...