“Bell of glory”. José Eleuterio González: first editor of the Memorias of fray Servando Teresa de Mier and producer of a heterodox regional literary canon

Abstract

In 1876, an unusual book was printed in the official presses of the government palace of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, which would provide the basis for the formation of a regional identity: it was the first two parts of the textual corpus that would make up the Memorias by fray Servando Teresa de Mier. Its editor was the physician, humanist and historian José Eleuterio González. With this book, González resurrected the writing of fray Servando, which had fallen into oblivion since his death in 1827 (except for some fragments published at the dawn of the 1860s, by the writer Manuel Payno), and would place him as a model of public and political conduct. González’s editorial work involved tracing the sources and textual archeology, as well as shaping the textual corpus to give coherence to the autobiographical account. In this essay, I will describe, from a multiple perspective, the process of making this edition: as part of the literary and cultural history of the Mexican 19th century, as well as from the articulation of a regional identity discourse that, in many aspects, contrasted the national model.