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Some Historical Values in a Famous Mexican Novel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Frank A. Knapp Jr.
Frank A. Knapp Jr.*
Affiliation:
Washington, D. C.
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Extract

Los bandidos de rio frio, the famous Mexican “costumbrista” novel set in the decades prior to the middle of the nineteenth century, has been considered the outstanding production of its author, Manuel Payno y Flores (1810–1894). Critics of Spanish American literature frequently have dissected the work for merits and defects primarily from a literary standpoint, although many of them have called attention to its unusual sociological-historical elements. Professor J. R. Spell has ranked it, along with other novels of Payno, the best social presentation of Mexico through a fiction medium since Francisco J. Lizardi’s El Periquillo Sarniento, while Antonio Castro Leal has stated that “the spectacle is so rich and varied that it may well be said that the novel is the painting of an entire epoch.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , October 1954 , pp. 131 - 139
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1954

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References

1 Except as otherwise indicated, the latest edition is cited herein: Payno, Manuel, Los Bandidos de Río Frío, ed. Antonio Castro Leal (5 vols.; Mexico, 1945)Google Scholar. The first edition was published in Spain in two volumes, 1889–1891.

2 See Peña, Carlos Gonzáles, Historia de la Literatura Mexicana desde los Orígenes hasta Nuestros Días (4th ed.; Mexico, 1949), p. 335 Google Scholar; Rueda, Julio Jiménez, Historia de la Literatura Mexicana (3rd ed.; Mexico, 1942), p. 176 Google Scholar; Azuela, Mariano, Cien Años de Novela Mexicana (Mexico, 1947), p. 78 Google Scholar; Louis George Kahle, “The Life and Literary Works of Manuel Payno” (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1937), pp. 61ff.

3 J. R. Spell, “The Literary Work of Manuel Payno,” Hispania, XII (October, 1929), 347.

4 Antonio Castro Leal in the prologue to Los Bandidos, I, viii.

5 Ibid., I, xii.

6 Ibid., V, 65n. Payno apparently was intending to write, had written, or was in process of writing his memoirs at the time of his death. The point has never been clarified; but the purported memoirs, which have not been located or published, seem to have been incorporated, at least in part, in Los Bandidos. See Castro Leal, ibid., I, ix; Alejandro Villaseñor y Villaseñor, “Apuntes Biográficos del Autor,” in Obras de Don Manuel Payno (Vol. 36 of Biblioteca de Autores Mexicanos, Mexico, 1901), I, xvi; Francisco Monterde in the prologue to Manuel Payno, Artículos y Narraciones (Mexico, 1945), pp. xxvii-xxviii.

7 Payno became editor-in-chief on November 1, 1869 (El Siglo Diez y Nueve [Mexico], November 1, 1869).

8 Payno’s outstanding term as Minister of Finance was in 1850–1851, when he drafted and negotiated an advantageous agreement for liquidation of the Mexican public debt. For a résumé, see Macedo, Pablo, Tres Monografías Que Dan Idea de Una Parte de la Evolución Económica de Mexico (Mexico, 1905), pp. 414–419 Google Scholar. The dates of his tenure under four appointments as Minister of Finance may be found in Beteta, Ramón, ed., La Hacienda Pública a través de los Informes Presidenciales (Mexico, 1951), pp. 729–731 Google Scholar. Furthermore, two famous financial documents, compiled by Payno and widely used by historians, should be noted: México y Sus Cuestiones Financieras con la Inglaterra, la España y la Francia (Mexico, 1862) and Cuentos, Gastos, Acreedores y Otros Asuntos del Tiempo de la Intervención Francesa y del Imperio (Mexico, 1868).

9 Villaseñor asserts that Payno also visited Japan (op. cit., p. vii). Payno’s travel accounts are scattered widely in the periodical literature of his epoch, usually appearing in serial form. A bound volume of memoirs of his trip to England and Scotland in 1851 is located in the Biblioteca Histórica de la Secretaría de Hacienda, Mexico, D. F. ( Payno, Manuel, Memorias e Impresiones de un Viaje a Inglaterra y Escocia [Mexico, 1853])Google Scholar.

10 Villaseñor, op. cit., p. xv. The foregoing summary is based largely on the writer’s familiarity with Payno’s political career and writings of a non-fiction type, especially his public financial documents and newspaper editorials, through previous study of Mexican history of the nineteenth century. Brief biographical sketches may be found in the following: Villaseñor, ibid., pp. v-xvii; Kahle, op. cit., pp. 1–7; Gonzalez Peña, op. cit., pp. 333–334; Iguíniz, Juan B., Bibliografía de Novelistas Mexicanos (Mexico, 1926), pp. 257–259 Google Scholar.

Unfortunately, there is no complete bibliographical compilation of Payno’s writings. In addition to the sources cited above, consult Spell, op. cit., pp. 348–349, 348n; McLean, Malcolm Dallas, El Contenido Literario de “El Siglo Diez y Nueve” (Inter-American Library Association, Ser. 1, Vol. IV [Washington, D. C., 1940]), pp. 55–58 Google Scholar.

11 Azuela, op. cit., p. 83.

12 Los Bandidos, III, 10.

13 Ibid., III, 16–17. For the complete story of the conflict and the solution, see ibid., III, 7–34.

14 Ibid., III, 277.

15 Ibid., V, 31.

16 For Payno’s trenchant comment on the revolutionary leader, his band, and their methods, see ibid., III, 375.

17 Ibid., III, 281–282. Valentín Cruz, the rebel leader in the novel, was an actual revolutionary chieftain of Mexico. See El Siglo, March 19, 1849.

18 See especially Los Bandidos, III, 163–173, 330–331.

19 See Ibid., II, 71–72, 75–76; I, 398–399.

20 Ibid., I, 399.

21 Ibid., III, 295–296.

22 Ibid., I, 347–348; II, 137–145.

23 Jiménez Rueda, op. cit., p. 175. See also Monterde’s prologue to Payno, Artículos y Narraciones, p. xxviii.

24 See, for example, Los Bandidos, II, 339; III, 20; V, 65, 70–72, 158. José Solórzano del Valle also noted the historical figures described in the novel (Introduction to Manuel Payno, Los Bandidos de Río Frio [2 vols.; Mexico, 1928], I, 11).

25 Spell, op. cit., p. 348. Payno was an intimate friend and political associate of President Comonfort and his Minister of Finance at different times between 1855–1858. Also, he was a close friend of Mariano Riva Palacio and his son Vicente Riva Palacio, historian, novelist, journalist, and statesman of the period. For evidence of this friendship, see Manuel Payno to Mariano Riva Palacio, May 27, July 10 and 25, 1871, Mariano Riva Palacio Papers (MSS), Folder 172, University of Texas Archives, Austin, Texas. Payno collaborated with the son Vicente and others in a collection of essays published under the title El Libro Rojo, 1520–1867 (Mexico, 1870). It is interesting to note, too, that Payno once wrote a treatise on the Mexico City-Veracruz railroad, prior to its completion, which was directed largely against the brothers Manuel and Antonio Escandón for their alleged profiteering in the enterprise at public expense (Memoria sobre el Ferrocarril de México a Veracruz [Mexico, 1868], in the Rare Books Collection, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C).

26 Spell, op. cit., p. 356.