Rojas, Fernando de (c. 1473/6–1541)

Castilian Spanish author. His continuation of an earlier, anonymous prose fiction was published, probably in 1499, as the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea/Comedy of Calisto and Melibea. He then produced an expanded and retitled version, the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea/Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea (about 1502). Both works were enormously popular; the Tragicomedia, which superseded the Comedia, became known as La Celestina.

Rojas read law at Salamanca University, and seems to have graduated around the time his first work was published. Both it and its successor were written in the form of dramas although they were not performed, Despite the acclaim his works received, it seems Rojas never wrote anything else, dedicating the rest of his life to a successful legal career.