Manolin: Novela Original

Eva Canel, 1891

Canel, Eva. Manolin: Novela Original. Habana: Romero Rubio, 1891. First Edition. 19 cm,. 215 pp.; ownership inscription on half-title “Maria de Lourdes,”; in contemporary three-quarter calf, spine with five compartments and gilt title, rubbed, esp. at head of spine and rear corners, marbled boards scratched.

Romantic novel by the prolific Spanish journalist Eva Canel (1857-1932) who, in addition to writing seven novels and four plays, published a satirical newspaper in Havana, reported on the World’s Columbian Exposition (1893) for papers across Latin America, lived in Argentina, Bolivia, and Cuba, where she founded her own press, and in the ultimate paradox, was a friend to both Jose Martí and Valeriano Weyler.

Despite the unusual scope of her activities, Canel was not a feminist. During her coverage of the Columbian Exposition she wrote a confusing defense of traditional Spanish womanhood. “In Spain we know nothing of women’s congresses, because the women who struggle and who study, and who enter the literary, scientific, artistic, or journalistic arena, do so on the same footing as men, the culture of both sexes being thus measured by the same standard … what does it matter if Spanish girls are not allowed the liberty of traveling and going out unaccompanied…?” (A perfectly hilarious question for a woman who wrote a travelogue about Tierra del Fuego.)

But Canel thought nothing of writing and reading about scandalous affairs and female sexuality of the kind encountered in this book and the 19th-century romance genre more generally.

The novel was included in an exhibition of rare Cuban books at the University of Miami, though oddly their copy is a second edition published in Madrid. WorldCat identifies approximately four other institutional holdings in the US.

SOLD

Cited:

Canel, Eva. “The Spanish Woman.” The North American Review 157, no. 444 (1893): 566–70.

Zequeira, María. “Eva Canel, Una Mujer De Paradojas.” Anuario De Estudios Americanos, 2001.