José Mallorquí's El Coyote: Bruguera, Favencia, and Dardo Editions of a Defining Spanish Western, 1957-1973

El Coyote

Archive

José Mallorquí’s El Coyote novels in Spanish and Italian editions from 1957 to 1973, documenting the international circulation and repeated redesign of a Spanish popular fiction series set in California after its annexation by the United States. Mallorquí created the masked Californio hero in 1943 and developed the series through 192 titles, placing Don César de Echagüe and his alter ego within conflicts over land, political authority, racial hierarchy, and American settlement during the Gold Rush era. The four principal volumes extend from an Italian illustrated periodical edition to later Barcelona pocket book issues published by Bruguera and Favencia, showing how publishers repackaged the same fictional world for successive postwar readerships. Mallorquí’s series became his best known work and remained in print through multiple publishing programs after the original run ended.

Four illustrated paperback novels, approximately 100 to 120 pages each, Milan and Barcelona, 1957 to 1973.
[1] Mallorquí, José. “El Diablo” a Los Angeles. Milan: Casa Editrice Dardo, 1957. Second Italian edition, issued in the Collana del Coyote, Anno VII, No. 157, dated August 1, 1957. The illustrated wrapper depicts two armed men in Mexican dress beneath the series title El Coyote; the title page carries a masked portrait signed F. Batet.
[2] Mallorquí, José. El secreto de Maise Syer. Barcelona: Editorial Bruguera, circa 1968 to 1971. Spanish pocket edition with an Antonio Bernal cover showing two mounted figures confronting one another beneath bare branches. The front wrapper bears manuscript markings in pencil and crayon, including “Num. 30,” while the rear promotes Bruguera’s El Coyote, Enviado Secreto, and Oeste Legendario series and gives the retail price as ten pesetas.
[3] Mallorquí, José. Sierra de oro. Barcelona: Ediciones Favencia, 1973. Illustrated paperback with a masked gunman in a sombrero on the wrapper; Jano credited for the cover and Pedro Alférez González for the illustrations. The copyright page records legal deposit B. 33561-1973 and ISBN 242-0024-1, while the preliminary matter directs readers to biographical sketches of the principal characters and a map of the geographical area in which the action occurs.
The editions span a period when Mallorquí’s Californio hero had moved beyond the original Spanish series into translation, reprinting, film, radio, and comic adaptation. The Italian issue places El Coyote within a Milanese periodical program in 1957, while the Bruguera and Favencia volumes document Barcelona publishers returning the novels to circulation during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their wrappers shift from Batet’s masked caballero and Mexican costuming to Bernal and Jano’s painted scenes of pursuit, firearms, and confrontation, while maps and character biographies supplied later readers with a recurring geography and cast. The group records how Spanish publishers converted nineteenth century California into a durable postwar popular mythology centered on a bilingual, aristocratic masked avenger negotiating the transfer of power from Mexican to American rule. Water staining, page toning, heavy handling wear, wrapper creasing and losses, and notes in pencil and crayon throughout. Overall fair condition.
Supplemented by two free reading copies lacking their illustrated wrappers, Trueno negro, No. 50, and Otra vez el pasado, No. 87, in poor condition.

Item #23630

Price: $240.00