Sixto Casillas Press

< Imprenta de Sixto Casillas




Eng-spa.png In Mexico, during the second half of the 19th century, various presses were busy publishing popular literature. The Sixto Casillas press is important because it is most noticeably the direct antecedent of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo’s in the Mexican capital. Located in Rinconada de Santa Catarina Mártir no. 4, this print shop must have worked approximately from 1850 until 1880.
      Certain records, such as the report of Mariano Silva y Aceves, from 1925, locate Casillas’ press between the press of Luis Abadiano y Valdez and that of Vanegas Arroyo [1]. Regarding the kind of material printed by Sixto Casillas, in 1941 José L. Cossio gave us a report based on his own juvenile memories:

They also produced the small books for the posadas, the pastorelas and a forgotten kind of literature, the scripts for the puppet comedies. They also printed what was called ejemplos, fantastic tales of imaginary deeds, which always ended with the punishment of the culprit or with the realisation of a miracle by a saint invoked in dire times, which were generally read at marketplaces. They also printed the patriotic sheets with décimas that attacked the Spanish, the French, and the Americans equally. [2]

Armando de María y Campos, in turn, underlined the relevance of the Sixto Casillas press in the spread of the corrido:

The first in Mexico to actively work on the propagation of the corrido was the renown popular coplero Sixto Casillas, who was once disdained by pedantic note poets, for we must not forget that in the middle of the last century the Mexican popular song was scorned, and it was considered a disgrace for a note poem to write songs. It was common to mock a writer by saying: “he writes as badly as Sixto Casillas”, and despite this indifference to the coplero’s production, he is the person who, in Mexico, worked during the second half of the last century in popularising and disseminating the corrido. The house of Antonio Vanegas Arroyo continued the noteworthy labor started by Sixto Casillas. [3]

The collections provided by this website contain various prints by Casillas, especially those of political content referring to Antonio López de Santa Ana.

Press Catalogue


LINK INCIPIT PUBLISHER (atribution) TYPE OF PRINT
Arriba, arriba madrina Tipografía de Sixto Casillas Hoja volante
El palomito poblano contra el dictador tirano Sixto Casillas Pliego de cordel
Hoy la leña en la ocasión nos pone como tizón Tipografía de Sixto Casillas Hoja volante
Lágrimas de las placeras a la estatua de Santa Anna Sixto Casillas Pliego de cordel
Santa Anna hizo su partida y la echó sin despedida Sixto Casillas Pliego de cordel
Un quelele en su navío hizo la del tapatío Sixto Casillas Pliego de cordel


References

  1. Mariano Silva y Aceves, “La colección folklórica de la Biblioteca del Museo Nacional. Apéndice de los documentos que en él se citan”, Anales del Museo Nacional de México, núm. 3, 1925, p.273.

  2. José L. Cossío, Guía retrospectiva de la ciudad de México, México, Inversora Bursátil S.A. de C.V., Casa de Bolsa, 1994, p. 42 (pp. 175) [1ra ed. 1941; 2da ed. 1990) apud Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Obras IX. Periodismo y literatura, artículos y ensayos (1877-1894), ed. de Ana Elena Díaz Alejo, México, UNAM, 2002, p.337 (nota 3)

  3. Armando De María y Campos, La revolución mexicana a través de los corridos populares, México, Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de la Revolución Mexicana, 1962, p.54.


UNAM-Logo.png
CDHumanidades-Logo.png
UDIR-Logo.png
ENES-Morelia-Logo.png
IIFilológicas-Logo.png
ECDSLuis-Logo.png
IIBerlin-Logo.png


AVISO LEGAL · EQUIPO y COLABORADORES · CONTACTO

HECHO EN MÉXICO © UNAM 2009 - 2024

ODOAR-Logo.png