Ricardo Palma - Literary Work

Literary Work

Ricardo Palma published his first verses and became the editor of a political and satiric newssheet called El Diablo (The Devil) at 15.

During his early years, Ricardo Palma composed romantic dramas (which he later repudiated) and poetry. His first book of verse, Poesías (Poems), appeared in 1855. He gained an early reputation as a historian with his book on the activities of the Spanish Inquisition during the period of the Viceroyalty of Peru (Anales De La Inquisicion De Lima: Estudio Historico, 1863).

He also wrote for the satirical press of Peru where he distinguished himself as a prolific columnist and one of the bastions of Peruvian political satire in the nineteenth century. He collaborated with the satirical sheet El Burro (The Donkey) and became later one of the principal contributors to the satirical magazine La Campana (The Bell). Later he founded the magazine La Broma (The Joke). He was also a regular contributor to serious publications such as El Mercurio, El Correo, La Patria, El Liberal, Revista del Pacífico and Revista de Sud América. He was further active as a foreign newspaper correspondent during the War of the Pacific.

Palma's literary reputation rests upon his creation and development of the literary genre known as tradiciones, short stories that mix history and fiction, written both to amuse and educate, according to the author's declared intention. It was by creatively using poetic license and by deviating from "pure" history that Palma gained his large South American readership. His Tradiciones peruanas span several centuries, with an emphasis on earlier colonial and republican times in Peru.

The Tradiciones were published from 1872 to 1910 in a series of volumes, some of which are freely available on the internet (see the bottom of this page for links). There are also many different editions and selections of the Tradiciones commercially available. The Tradiciones peruanas do not meet formal historical standards of accuracy or reliability sufficiently to be considered "history," but Palma never intended them to be read as "pure" history. Since they are primarily historical fiction, they should be understood and enjoyed as such.

The author's opinion, the opinions of the other primary sources or oral narrators of the stories he collects and transmits, as well as hearsay play a large role in his stories. One of the best-known of the Tradiciones, especially within American Spanish literature classes, is "La camisa de Margarita"]..

Some of the Tradiciones peruanas have been translated into English under the title The Knights of the Cape and Thirty-seven Other Selections from the Tradiciones Peruanas of Ricardo Palma (ed. by Harriet de Onís, 1945) and more recently under the title Peruvian Traditions (ed. by Christopher Conway and translated by Helen Lane, Oxford University Press, 2004).

The Tradiciones peruanas are recognised as a considerable contribution to Peruvian and South American literature. Some critics have classified the Tradiciones as part of nineteenth-century Romanticism.

Palma's Tradiciones en Salsa Verde were published posthumously. These stories are similar to the Tradiciones peruanas but, because of their bawdy nature, they were not published during Palma's lifetime for fear of shocking the sedate Lima establishment.

Throughout his life, Ricardo Palma published various articles and books on history, the results of his own historical research such as the Anales De La Inquisicion De Lima: Estudio Historico (1863) and Monteagudo y Sánchez Carrión (1877). He was a noted linguistic scholar and wrote a number of works on the subject including the Neologismos y americanismos and Papeletas lexográficas. He campaigned for recognition by the Real Academia Española of the Latin-American and Peruvian contributions to the Spanish language.