Cecilia Böhl de Faber y Larrea born in Morges, Switzerland, on December 24, 1796, and was the daughter of the consul Juan Nicolás Böhl de Faber and Frasquita Larrea. She took her pseudonym from a little village call Fernán Caballero (in Ciudad Real, Spain), but also wrote signing just 'Corina'.

During her early years she lived in Germany until she returned with her family to the city of Cádiz in 1813, at the age of 17 years. She married on March 30, 1816 with infantry captain Antonio Planelles y Bardaxí. The couple moved to Puerto Rico, since her husband had been assigned to that place, but the marriage would be short by the death of Don Antonio.

After she moved to Hamburg, northern Germany, where she lived with her grandmother. Some years later she moved back to El Puerto de Santa María, Spain, where she met Francisco Ruiz del Arco, Marquis of Arco Hermoso. On March 26, 1822 she contracted second marriage with him in Seville. But in May 1835 she became a widow again.

Shortly after she met Antonio Arrom de Ayala, whom she married in 1837. But Ayala was ill with consumption and with serious economic problems that caused him to commit suicide in 1863. Thus was the writer in poverty. The Dukes of Montpensier and Queen Elizabeth II of Spain protected and gave her a home in the Courtyard of Flags in the Alcázar of Seville, but the revolution of 1868 forced to move because the houses were offered for sale.

She died in Seville on April 7, 1877.

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Fernán Caballero

Writer