ABSTRACT
Carmen de Burgos Studies took off in 1976 with the publication in Almería of Elizabeth Starčević’s book Carmen de Burgos: Defensora de la mujer, followed by her 1993 essay on Burgos in Spanish Women Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Source Book. In 2005, Concepción Núñez Rey’s well-researched biography of Burgos added depth to the documentation of the author’s life and expanded the bibliography of her writings. Recent books draw heavily on Núñez Rey for their data on Burgos and her publications, breaking little new biographical ground while striving to present her in unique, illuminating ways. 1 Despite the advances in our knowledge of the author over the past four decades, gaps remain in her biography that make significant aspects of her life unknowable, while new data about her feminist activism, her Masonic affiliations, and her burial have enhanced our understanding of her mature years. Nevertheless, the lacunae that Núñez Rey could not resolve constitute the enigma of Burgos’s life: the author’s date of marriage, perceptions of her age in her lifetime, the terms of her separation from her husband and the legal and economic impact of her separation.
