Hispanic Issues On Line 18 explores the work of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, one of the foremost Romantic writers of world literature, pioneer of the abolitionist novel in the Americas, and precursor of modern feminist thought. This volume examines the author’s contribution to the ongoing debates on human rights and shows why her work remains relevant. The essays draw from a diverse theoretical framework, including Legal Studies, African Studies, Latino Studies, American Studies, Feminist and Women’s Studies, History, and Comparative Literature, and covers the majority of the literary genres that Gómez de Avellaneda cultivated: novel, short prose, drama, poetry, travel narratives, and letters. The volume provides a complete picture of the author’s literary output and offers, for the first time, an overview of the author’s presence in the U.S. press as evidence of her transnational influence.

Introduction
Gertrudis the Great: First Abolitionist and Feminist in the Americas and Spain
María C. Albin, Megan Corbin, and Raúl Marrero-Fente

Part I: The Transnational Press and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda
 
A Transnational Figure:
Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and the American Press
María C. Albin, Megan Corbin, and Raúl Marrero-Fente

Part II: Sab (1841): The First Anti-Slavery Novel in the Americas

Nothing to Hide: Sab as an Anti-Slavery and Feminist Novel
Julia C. Paulk
 
Picturing Cuba: Romantic Ecology in Gómez de Avellaneda’s Sab (1841)
Adriana Méndez Rodenas
 
Nation, Violence, Memory: Disrupting Foundational Readings of Sab
Jenna Leving Jacobson
 
Part III: Guatimozín and the Rewriting of the Conquest
 
Rewriting History and Reconciling Cultural Differences in Guatimozín
Rogelia Lily Ibarra
 
Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda and her View of the Colonial Past
Mariselle Meléndez
 
Part IV: Travel Writing and Folk Tales
 
The "Presence" of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda in the Three Tradiciones from her Última excursión por los Pirineos (1859)
Catharina Vallejo
 
Part V: A Writer for All Times: The Plays, Poems, and Love Letters of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda
 
The Making of Leoncia: Romanticism, Tragedy, and Feminism
Alexander Selimov
 
Rebellious Apprentice Devours Maestros: Is it Hunger or Vengeance?
Mary Louise Pratt
 
Tu amante ultrajada no puede ser tu amiga (Your Scorned Lover Can't Be Your Friend): Editing Tula's Love Letters
Emil Volek
 
Afterword
Of the Margins and the Center: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda
Lesley Wiley