Introduction

Versatile Spanish writer José Joaquín de Mora (Cadiz, 1783–Madrid, 1864) was one of the country’s most prestigious exponents of classical political economy. His long, wide-ranging intellectual and reformist career invokes the traditional profile of an early nineteenth-century Spanish liberal who exercised many varied professions: law, journalism, creative writing, teaching, translation, political consultancy and diplomacy; and distinguished himself in disciplines as diverse as literature, moral philosophy, logic, philosophy, politics and law. Political economy always featured among his interests from his young days and Mora studied the discipline constantly from 1817, when he published his first journal in Madrid, towards the end of his life. This chapter examines the main milestones in Mora’s biography and provides a concise state of the art of the current bibliography. It also highlights the absence of a comprehensive monograph dedicated to reconstructing his life and the great lack of works devoted to his career as an economist.