I wish to acknowledge the diligence of my editor, Professor Ann Logan Mackenzie, and the anonymous reader of my typescript, as well as the counsel of Professor Carlos Alonso, who read an earlier version of this book. I am especially grateful to Mr Robin Bloxsidge and the staff at Liverpool University Press. Margaret Ewalt greatly assisted me in the preparation of the bibliography. Except where otherwise indicated, all translations are mine, and the opinions and errors are mine also.

I am indebted to participants, and to the National Endowment for the Humanities which sponsored my participation, in the Aston Magna Academy held at Rutgers University in June–July 1995. The transatlantic and multidisciplinary nature of the Academy reaffirmed my approach to teaching and research in the wide field of Hispanism. I must also salute the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the affiliated society to which I belong, Sociedad Iberoamericana.

Numerous colleagues, mentors and friends on both sides of the Atlantic have contributed to this book through conversations, arguments, conferences and seminars. I wish to especially thank the following individuals: Cedomil Goic, Charles Fraker, Victoria Pineda, Teresa Sanhueza, Gabriela Nouzeilles, Alejandro Mejías-López, Osvaldo Pardo, María Carrión, Gus Puleo, Donald Shaw, David Gies, Gustavo Pellón, Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, María Salgado, Ricardo Padrón, Karen Stolley, Sabine MacCormack, Fernando Plata, Pilar Saenz, Peggy Bonds, Raúl Marrero, Fernando Operé, Enid Valle, Rosa Perelmuter, David Haberly, Monroe Hafter, Alison Weber and Felicia Johnson.

My deepest thanks go to my parents and six brothers and sisters, who taught me the dignity of work far-removed from academe.