C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
José Francisco de Isla (1703–1781)
Isla, José Francisco de (ēs’lä). A Spanish Jesuit satirist; born in Vidane, March 24, 1703; died at Bologna, Nov. 2, 1781. He is without a rival among his countrymen, Cervantes always excepted, as a wit and satirist; the prodigious popularity of his ‘Life and Adventures of Friar Gerundio de Campazas,’ upon its first appearance in 1758 (under the pseudonym of “F. Lobon de Salazar”), being a tribute to its unhackneyed drolleries. He made an infelicitous translation of ‘Gil Blas’ from the French that led to a still more infelicitous controversy over the authorship of that lengthy masterpiece. His other works are without importance.