José Joaquín de Mora and Britain: Cultural Transfers and Transformations

This book explores the connections that José Joaquín de Mora (1783–1864)established with Britain, where he was exiled from 1823 to 1826 and was toreturn as diplomat in the following decades. His admiration for the Britishmaterialised in a series of cultural transfers aimed at the promotion and diffusionof British culture in Spain and Spanish America. He contributed to thepopularization of Bentham’s utilitarianism, the principles of British classicaleconomy, and the philosophy of the Scottish School of Common Sense; hetranslated texts by Scott and Shakespeare and wrote an unfinished versionof Byron’s Don Juan; and, above all, he presented Britain as a model for thepolitical, economic, and literary regeneration of the Hispanic world.

Sara Medina Calzada teaches English language and literature at the Universityof Valladolid (Spain). Her main research interest is in Anglo-Hispanic historicaland cultural relations in the nineteenth century and, more particularly, inthe literary activities of the Spanish liberal exiles in London (1823–1833), thereception of British literature in the Hispanic world, and the representationsof Spain in Romantic Britain.