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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · 568 pagesHardcover · 6 × 9 in · 568 pagesAbout this book
What happens to love in a city where skin color and money decide who belongs?
In colonial Havana, Cecilia Valdés wants a better life than her birth seems to allow. Beautiful, proud, and of mixed race, she forms a bond with Leonardo Gamboa, the spoiled white son of a wealthy family. Their desires run against a social order that sets firm limits on whom they may love.
Cirilo Villaverde places their story inside a city whose sugar wealth rests on enslaved labor. Leonardo’s father, Cándido Gamboa, guards a fortune tied to the slave trade, while his mother, Rosa, wants a proper marriage for her son. Around them, families, servants, suitors, and rivals reveal how private hopes meet public rules.
What you’ll discover
- A woman between worlds Follow Cecilia’s ambition as beauty and desire meet the barriers of parentage and color.
- Love under pressure Watch Cecilia and Leonardo’s bond strain against family expectations and Havana’s strict social ranks.
- Wealth and its foundations Look behind the Gamboa household’s comfort to the slave trade that helps sustain it.
- A city in detail Walk through Havana’s streets and customs with a narrator who pauses to examine its people.
- The limits of talent Meet José Dolores Pimienta, a skilled man who knows the boundaries imposed on him.
Who will love it
Readers who love sweeping historical fiction, family secrets, ballroom scenes and vivid city streets will enjoy this novel. It also draws those curious about colonial Cuba.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A hidden birth opens the story
- Cecilia refuses to stay indoors
- The dance binds three unequal hopes
- Leonardo keeps two women waiting
- The estate exposes the cost of luxury
- Family power takes away Cecilia's freedom
- Prejudice shapes what love can promise
- Slavery reaches into every comfortable home
- Love and power share one story
Who’s who
- Cecilia ValdésA strikingly beautiful young woman of mixed race, raised by her grandmother, who hopes a white lover will lift her out of her class.
- Leonardo GamboaA charming, spoiled law student who takes what he wants, loves being adored, and cannot choose between duty and desire.
- José Dolores PimientaA gifted clarinet player and tailor who loves Cecilia in silence and cannot accept watching a white man win her.
- Nemesia PimientaJosé Dolores's sharp-tongued sister and Cecilia's friend, who gossips, schemes and wants to steer both Cecilia and Leonardo her own way.
- Isabel IlinchetaA thoughtful young woman who manages her father's coffee plantation and is promised to Leonardo, though she doubts his heart.
- Doña RosaLeonardo's devoted mother, who spoils him, guards her pride as a wife, and holds a long grudge against a hidden rival.
- Don Cándido GamboaA wealthy Spanish businessman and slave trader who rules his family with silence and tries to control the fate of those around him.
- María de ReglaAn enslaved nurse exiled to the sugar mill, who loves her daughter and her husband Dionisio and knows the secret of Cecilia's birth.
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Cecilia Valdés, or The Angel's Hill in 25 languages, side by side, paragraph by paragraph, once the book texts are online: the way to learn a language with a book you love.
Cecilia Valdés, or The Angel's Hill
by Cirilo Villaverde · 1839
A street girl with a coral rosary draws every eye in Havana, and a rich student sets out to win her.
Challenging10–20 hours to read20 languages
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“Beauty, too, has the power to awaken sleeping charity.”
In short
Picture a closed carriage creeping through the dark streets of Havana one November dusk in 1812. A tall gentleman steps down, slips into a small house, and asks after a dying young woman and the baby taken from her.
Cecilia Valdés, or The Angel's Hill at a glance
- Reading time
- About 12 h 55 min10 h 15 min fast, 15 h 20 min slow
- Length
- 184,000 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1839by Cirilo Villaverde
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A secret visit sets the story going
The novel opens at dusk in November 1812. A calash rolls along Compostela Street with its curtains fastened. A tall gentleman gets down at San Juan de Dios Alley and taps twice on the door of a small house.
A mulatta named Josefa lets him in. They speak in low voices about a baby girl who has been sent through the Royal Foundling Home so she can carry the name Valdés. Josefa says she has marked a blue crescent on the child's left shoulder, as he ordered.
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A street girl with a coral rosary draws every eye in Havana, and a rich student sets out to win her.
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Details
- First published
- 1839
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 13 h 55 min
- Level
- Challenging
- Paperback
- 568 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Hardcover
- 568 pages · 6 × 9 in
- Large print paperback
- 572 pages · 8.5 × 11 in
- Large print hardcover
- 572 pages · 8.5 × 11 in
- Delivery and returns
- Printed when you order. Usually here in 12 to 14 days.Arrives Tue 1 Dec to Mon 7 Decto United States, printed for you at cost
For Christmas, order by Thu 12 Nov
Cite this edition
Villaverde, Cirilo. Cecilia Valdés, or The Angel's Hill. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/cecilia-valdes-or-the-angels-hill.
Villaverde, C. (2026). Cecilia Valdés, or the Angel's Hill. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/cecilia-valdes-or-the-angels-hill (Original work published 1839)
Villaverde, Cirilo. Cecilia Valdés, or The Angel's Hill. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/cecilia-valdes-or-the-angels-hill.
@book{villaverde2026cecilia,
author = {Villaverde, Cirilo},
title = {Cecilia Valdés, or The Angel's Hill},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/cecilia-valdes-or-the-angels-hill},
note = {First published 1839}
}
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What is Cecilia Valdés about?
It is a novel of Havana between 1812 and 1831 about a beautiful young woman of mixed race, the rich white student who courts her, and a family secret. It also shows slavery and class in colonial Cuba.
Who is Cecilia Valdés in the novel?
She is a foundling given the name Valdés, raised by her grandmother Chepilla in the Ángel neighborhood. Known as the Little Bronze Virgin, she hopes a white lover will lift her out of her class.
Is Cecilia Valdés a true story?
It is fiction built on real history. Villaverde used real streets, customs and public figures such as Captain General Vives and the policeman Tondá. He published the first volume in 1839 and the full, extensively rewritten version in 1882.
The author
Cirilo Villaverde
1812–1894 · Cuban novelist
Cirilo Villaverde (1812–1894) was a Cuban writer. He was born in San Diego de Núñez, Cuba, and died in New York City. He lived in Cuba and the United States. His novel Cecilia Valdés appeared in an early version in 1839 and in an expanded version in 1882.
“Beauty, too, has the power to awaken sleeping charity.”
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