José María Vergara y Vergara


José María Vergara y Vergara was a Colombian diplomat, journalist, politician, and writer. Vergara y Vergara is known for writing the first literary history of Colombia, a detailed chronological compilation of authors, works, and literary movements between 1538 and 1820.

Works

Vergara y Vergara admired and read assiduously the works of Fernán Caballero, Antonio Trueba, François René de Chateaubriand and Miguel de Cervantes. He published the Historia de la literatura en Nueva Granada, the anthologies Parnaso colombiano and La lira granadina, and the biography Vida y escritos del general Nariño. He also wrote lyric poetry, costumbrismo portraits, emulating Fernán Caballero,, and novels.



According to his autobiography, he left some unedited manuscripts: the novel Mercedes; Cuadros Políticos o Días Históricos ; an incomplete dictionary of geography; a dictionary of biographies; and two incomplete novels, Un chismoso and Un odio a muerte.

Newspapers Founded and/or Edited by Vergara y Vergara

La Siesta, with Rafael Pombo.

La Matricaria: Periódico de La Juventud. Colección de Artículos de Costumbres, Revistas y Literatura

El Mosaico: Miscelánea de Literatura, Ciencias y Música, with Ricardo Carrasquilla and José Manuel Marroquín.

El Heraldo: Órgano Del Partido Conservador.

El Cundinamarqués: Periódico Oficial y Órgano de los Intereses del Estado.