Eisenberg da la significativa información que Sebastián de Cormellas era el impresor de Lope, y editor de numerosas comedias del dramaturgo («Cervantes» 139).

Nipper, a Jack Russell terrier whose image appeared on the labels of all RCA Victor recordings and in most of its advertisements, is the most famous dog who ever lived, if one takes as criterion the number of times his likeness has been reproduced. For an introduction, http://www.nipperhead.com/nipper.htm and http://www.tvacres.com/adanimals_nipperrca.htm (6 March 2003).

This observation is often made merely in passing, but it is effectively argued by Schippers, Booth (The Company), and Turner.

Barthes' dead author statement ranks as one of the three most famous and most absurd proclamations of contemporary French-based literary theory. (The other two are Derrida's statement that there is nothing outside the text, and Lacan's affirmation that the unconscious is structured like a language.) Foucault suggested that the concept of «author» did not exist before the eighteenth century, an idea enthusiastically endorsed by Martha Woodmansee and others (see particularly Woodmansee and Jaszi). The reality of Spanish Renaissance literature refutes such an ahistorical position, as is clear from the interest in the contemporary theories of authorship of the original Celestina, Amadís de Gaula, and Lazarillo de Tormes; the canonization of Garcilaso de la Vega as a great author; the institution of the pre-copyright in the privilegio; and the reactions of Mateo Alemán and -above all- Cervantes to the appropriation of their works by others. For more reasoned consideration of the relationship between author and work, see Burke, Close, Hix, Keefer, and Kerr.

I will make no attempt to include here a complete bibliography on the subject or to trace in detail the ebb and flow of the debate, but some of the most significant studies on the subject are by Allen, El Saffar, Fernández Mosquera, Flores, Haley, Lathrop, López Navia, Mancing («Cide Hamete»), Martín Morán, Parr, Paz Gago, Presberg, and Weiger.

Not in the prologue to his Viaje del Parnaso, but in chapter 4, Cervantes describes himself in terms that are simultaneously self-depreciating and selfpromoting (see also the «Adjunta» to the poem). The narrator of the poem, Cervantes, is simultaneously a fictional character who makes a trip to the mythical Mount Parnassus and defends it against bad poets and the historically real ex-soldier who was maimed in the battle of Lepanto, the author of La Galatea, Don Quijote, and other works. The fact that in Parnaso the author and the narrator are both named Cervantes has caused a problem for those critics who insist on the absolute exclusion of the historical author from a fictional account. See the important essays by Canavaggio, Riley («Viaje»), and Rivers («Cervantes' Journey»).

Note that whatever «truth claim» might be involved in the prologue is clearly contextualized as ironic and not literal. Cervantes here is «fictionalized», but only in the sense that we all fictionalize ourselves when telling a fictional story, especially if it is about ourselves.

For the inevitably fictional, self-creating nature of the autobiographical project, and the fine lines separating autobiography, autobiographical fiction, and fictional autobiography, see Bruner, Couser, Eakin, Freeman, Herman, Spacks, and Stanley.

Vindel and, citing him, Eisenberg (96 n. 81) identify the friend as Cervantes' publisher, Francisco de Robles.

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This is a particularly interesting example, as this narrator has the same initials as the author, is the author of novels with the same titles as Martín Gaite's own books, and shares many of the facts of her life with Martín Gaite. This brilliant novel is as good an example as one can find of the metafictional blurring of the line between historical author and fictional narrator/character.