Introduction

Mateo Alemán did not write the second picaresque novel in 1598, nor did Juan Martí write the first picaresque sequel in 1602. A half-century before either responded to Lazarillo de Tormes's challenge, the anonymous author of the 1555 Segundo Lazarilllo had already beaten them both to the punch. His work, not Alemán's Part I of Guzmán, was the second picaresque novel and the first consciously picaresque novel. His work, not Martí's Part II of Guzmán (1602), was the first picaresque sequel and the first picaresque novel with an open ending. His work, and no one else's, expanded and extended Lazarillo's life on and beyond the Iberian Peninsula for forty-five years. Very much of its era – it was the last great continuation of the Age of Silva – it was way ahead of the Sevillian's and the Valencian's. This chapter aims to illuminate the Segundo Lazarillo's uncredited contribution to the stories of the novelistic genre it helped found and the form of literary continuation it helped refine, namely, the picaresque novel and the sequel. Further, it aims to set the stage for the work of the two authors who so productively read and learned from its example in writing the next chapter of both stories, namely, Mateo Alemán and Juan Martí.

Before turning to a close reading of the front matter and central allegory of the Segundo Lazarillo – the former offers a syntax of literary continuation, the latter a semantics of genre definition and formation – it proves instructive to look first to the juridico-economic context in which it was composed and printed, in particular the evolving commerce and law – civil, criminal and ecclesiastical – of the book.