[1] In 1833, he was sent to study law at the university of Toledo, but after a year of idleness, he fled to Madrid, where he horrified the friends of his absolutist father by making violent speeches and by founding a newspaper that promptly was suppressed by the government.

In 1837 he published a book of verses, mostly imitations of Alphonse de Lamartine and Victor Hugo, which was so favourably received that he printed six more volumes within three years.

His Cantos del trovador (1841), a collection of national legends written in verse, made Zorilla second only to José de Espronceda in popular esteem.

[1] National legends also supply the themes of his dramas, which Zorilla often constructed by adapting older plays that had fallen out of fashion.

In a fit of depression, he emigrated to America three years later, hoping, he claimed, that yellow fever or smallpox would kill him.

He received a pension of 30,000 reales, a gold medal of honor from the Spanish Academy, and, in 1889, the title of National Laureate.