INTRODUCTION NO OTHER contemporary Spanish poet has achieved so international a reputation as Lorca.Already, in the years preceding the Second World War, translations of his work had made him well known, especially in Britain and the Americas. In part, perhaps, his early fame outside Spain may be attributable to the tragic and violent circumstances of his death in the Spanish Civil War. But succeeding years have proved that the major part of his popularity rests on surer foundations than mere sensationalism. Indeed, the figure of Lorca has gained in perspective with the years, and it may now be asserted with confidence that his poetry is among the best which Spain has produced. The present selection (with his essay on the Duende as an appendix) contains the essential in Lorca’s poetry. Federico García Lorca was born at Fuentevaqueros, in the fertile plain of Granada, on 5 June 1898. He was murdered in August 1936 by a group of unknown persons during the first days of the Civil War. The assassination took place, it seems, at Viznar, on the hills outside Granada, but his body (as he prophetically foresaw) has never been found: ... comprendí que me habían asesinado. Recorrieron los cafés y los cementerios y las iglesias, abrieron los toneles y los armarios, destrozaron tres esqueletos para arrancar sus dientes de oro. Ya no me encontraron. ¿No me encontraron? No. No me encontraron* *... I realised I had been murdered. They searched cafés and cemeteries and churches, they opened barrels and cupboards, they plundered three skeletons to remove their gold teeth. They did not find me. They never found me? No. They never found me. 11