Book excerpt: The Spanish Golden Age saw an unprecedented rise in the production of autobiographical works. Even more so than present-day autobiographies, early modern manifestations of this genre are topics of lively debate, particularly about their generic affiliation and their unique place in literature. As a necessary basis for approaching these questions, this book retrieves and re-evaluates the antecedents of Golden Age autobiography and analyzes its literary and cultural facilitators. With the precepts of genre established, this work proposes new perspectives on the nexus of autobiographical and fictional literature of the Siglo de Oro.