Don Catrín de la Fachenda

Written in 1819 and published posthumously in 1832, _Don Catrín de la Fachenda_ is the final and most cynical novel by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi. Set against the backdrop of the socio-economic upheavals of late colonial New Spain, the novel chronicles the life and tragic decline of Don Catrín, a middle-class criollo who rejects education and honest labor in favor of vanity, superficial fashion, and a lifestyle of deceit.

Evolving from the traditional starving *pícaro* of the Spanish Golden Age into a precursor of the modern *dandy*, Don Catrín embodies the moral bankruptcy and social anxiety of a collapsing colonial order. Through a sharp collision of discourses—the libertine cynicism of the protagonist versus the moralizing authority of enlightened figures like his uncle the priest—Lizardi exposes the ideological tensions of a society on the verge of independence.

Complete with an insightful introductory study by María Eugenia Mudrovcic, this edition illuminates how Lizardi used fiction not only to moralize, but to probe deeply into the psychological and structural crises of a transitioning era.