Francisco Sosa was born in Campeche, April 2, 1848. When he was still a child his parents removed to Merida, where the boy received his education. His first poetical effort appeared in a local paper, when the writer was but fourteen years of age. At that time, he was editor—in union with Ovidio and Octavio Zorilla—of the paper, La Esperanza (Hope), in which it appeared. Four years later his Manual de Biografía Yucateca (Manual of Yucatecan Biography) was published, showing his early devotion to the field in which he has chiefly figured, that of biography. With Ramón Aldana, he founded La Revista de Merida (The Merida Review), which is still published and is, unquestionably, the most influential paper in Yucatan. In 1868, when but twenty years old, he went, for the first time to the City of Mexico, where most of his life since has been spent. He had, however, already been a prisoner, for political reasons, in the famous and dreadful fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, at Vera Cruz. He became promptly associated with the literary men of Mexico and collaborated with them, upon a number of important periodical publications, literary and political. In 1873 he was associated with Gen. Riva Palacios in the editorship of El Radical (The Radical). Later as editor of the Federalista (Federalist), he gave to that paper a notable literary reputation and contributed to it, both prose and verse. He was one of the editors of El Bien Publico (The Public Good), a paper aimed to combat the administration of President Lerdo de Tejada; while thus connected, he went to Guanajuato to join the standard of Iglesias, returning, at the downfall of Lerdo de Tejada, to the City of Mexico. Since that time, he has edited various periodicals, including El Siglo XIX (The Nineteenth Century), El Nacional (The National), and La Libertad (Liberty).
Señor Sosa’s books have been mainly in the line of biography. Besides the volume on Yucatecans already mentioned, he has published *Don