Playwright of Basque origin born in Madrid to a mother from Guipuzcoa in 1832. He died in the same city in 1916.
He was a multifaceted writer, scientist, teacher and politician. His first dramatic works, El libro talonario and La esposa del vengador , were premiered on February 18, 1874, and En el puo de la espada , in 1875. Although he achieved great popularity in the following years with new dramas, he also experienced a progressive lack of interest, perhaps due to his somewhat outdated romanticism. These works, which made him popular, were, among others, O locura o santidad (1876), En el seno de la muerte (1879), El gran Galeoto (1881), Un cr tico imaciente (1891) and Mariana (1892).
He received the Nobel Prize for Literature as a playwright in 1904. Another of José Echegaray's facets is that of an economist affiliated with the free-trade and liberal school. When he held the position of Minister of Finance in 1874, he founded the Bank of Spain. He had also been a professor at the School of Engineering in Madrid and Minister of Public Works. He was considered the first mathematician in Spain. It is worth noting that his work El gran Galeoto , one of his best-known dramas, has been adapted to the cinema twice.