José María Blanco White (Seville 1775 – Liverpool 1841), priest, thinker, writer, theologian and journalist, has until relatively recently been neglected in Spanish literary histories, in large part because of his decision to abandon Spain and the Catholic Church.

As a young man, Blanco entered the priesthood, but soon became disenchanted with the Church in Spain. After moving to England in 1810, he left the Church and converted first to Anglicanism (1812) and then to Unitarianism. Throughout his life, however, he would continue to question his theological convictions and to express his doubts.

Born José María Blanco Crespo, in England he went by the name of Joseph Blanco White, his grandfather (born in Ireland as William White) having changed his name to Guillermo Blanco upon moving to Spain. In England, Blanco established the newspaper El Español, in support of the Spanish-British anti-Napoleonic alliance, and containing articles advocating the reform of Spain and of the Cortes, and the independence of the American colonies. From its first issue, El Español caused considerable controversy in Spain, leading Blanco to the conviction that it was impossible to be both Spanish and free.

From 1812 on, Blanco undertook the study of English literature. In 1822 he brought out his best-known work, Letters from Spain, under the pseudonym Leucadio Doblado, setting forth the country’s traditions, institutions and mores, with an exposure of religious intolerance and the power of the Catholic Church. This chimed with British/Protestant attitudes and contributed to the book’s success, establishing Blanco White’s position as a man of letters. His connections in British society – he was part of the Holland House circle, along with patriotically-minded liberals like Thomas Moore, and entered into correspondence with Felicia Hemans (author of the 1808 ode England and Spain) – allowed him to arrange financial assistance for other Spanish émigrés who arrived in England in the 1820s. At the same time, he began to be seen as an expert on Spain and was invited to write an article on the subject for the 1824 supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The changing English appreciation of Spain, during and after the Napoleonic period (as evinced, for instance, in Hemans’s verse), is in no small part due to his influence.

Blanco also wrote essays on religious controversialism; his preoccupation with the topic of religion also emerges from his posthumously published autobiography (1845). For many years, it was believed that Blanco was also the author of the historical novel Vargas (1822), which recently however has been demonstrated to be the work of Alexander Dallas, a British veteran of the Peninsular War.