Los Alivios de Casandra...

Bookseller Notes

A rare book: the second edition, the following year, is as rare. A late work by the celebrated novelist and playwright Alonso de Castillo Solorzano (15841647?). Full of witty observation, the work demonstrates the versatility and graceful style he was known for.Baptized at Tordesillas near Valladolid, Castillo Solorzano emerged onto the Madrileno literary scene in the early seventeenth century. Some time in the 1620s he joined the household of the marquis de los Vlez, Viceroy of Valencia, and published in quick succession three picaresque novels: La Nia de los embustes, Teresa de Manzanares (1634), Las Aventuras del Bachiller Trapaza (1637), and a continuation entitled La Gardua de Sevilla y Anzuelo de las bolsas (1642). To these shrewd cynical stories he owes his reputation. He followed the marquis de los Vlez in his disastrous campaign in Catalonia, and accompanied him to Rome, where the defeated general was sent as ambassador. He died, likely in Palermo, some time before 1648.