LUIS GONZALES OBREGÓN.

Luis Gonzales Obregón, one of the best known of living Mexican writers, was born in Guanajuato, August 25, 1865. After studying under private teachers at his home, he went to Mexico, where he completed his preparatory studies in the Seminario and in the Colegio de San Ildefonso. Ill health interfered with his further education, but he had already developed a strong affection for literary, and particularly for historical, pursuits, which has motived his whole life work. He is a devoted student of the national history of his country and particularly delights in the investigation of obscure and curious incidents. So far as a feeble physical constitution has allowed, he has given himself up to such researches and to writing. In 1889 he published a useful little volume, entitled Novelistas Mexicanos en el Siglo XIX (Mexican Novelists in the Nineteenth Century). In an introductory section he briefly characterizes the Mexican novel; he then presents a complete list of the novelists of the century, to the time of his writing, with the names of their novels and a few discriminating words regarding their place in the national literature. Our author’s best known work is certainly México Viejo (Old Mexico), of which a “first series” was printed in 1891 and a “second series” in 1895. These have recently been republished, in a single volume, in Paris. The work consists of essays, each dealing with some special event in Mexican history, or sketching the life of some eminent person, or depicting some old custom or popular practice. Usually they contain information derived from unpublished manuscripts or rare and ancient works. Among the many other writings of our author, two biographical sketches demand particular mention, on account of the interest and prominence of the men who form the subjects. These are Don José Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi famous as a writer, early in the last century, under the nom-de-plume of El Pensador Mexicano (the Mexican thinker),