Abel Posse
The novelist's father, Ernesto Parentini, a porteño of Italian parents, was one of the founders of Artistas Argentinos Asociados and was the producer of the legendary feature film La guerra gaucha (1942), based on the text by the poet Leopoldo Lugones. The young Abel Posse grew up in the Argentine capital near Rivadavia street, and given his father's profession was exposed to the artistic and cultural milieu this most sophisticated of the South American capitals had to offer. The “Queen of the River Plate”, as Buenos Aires came to be known, fascinated the young man, (4) and his memories are evoked in his novel Los demonios ocultos (1987).
He was able to mingle with the glamorous stars of Argentine show business, like Chas de Cruz, Pierina Dealessi, Ulises Petit de Murat, Muñoz Azpiri, the writer of radioplays which were performed by Eva Duarte (de Perón), as well as the tango composers Aníbal Troilo and Homero Manzi. Such were the family connections to show business that one of his aunts, Esmeralda Leiva de Heredia, better known as “La Jardín”, was an actress friend of Eva Duarte. (5) Growing up in this environment enabled him to obtain an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of the tango repertoire and its culture, (6) which imbues his novel La reina del Plata (1988).
Abel Boyer
Abel Boyer was probably born on 24 June 1667 at Castres, in Upper Languedoc, southern France. His father, Pierre Boyer, one of the two consuls or chief magistrates of Castres, had been suspended and fined for his Protestantism. Boyer's education at the academy of Puylaurens was interrupted by the religious disturbances, and leaving France with his maternal uncle Pierre Campdomerc, a noted Huguenot preacher, he finished his studies at Franeker in Friesland, after a brief episode, it is said, of military service in Holland. Proceeding to England in 1689 he fell into great poverty, and is represented as transcribing and preparing for the press Dr. Thomas Smith's edition of William Camden's Latin correspondence (London, 1691). A good classical scholar, Boyer became in 1692 tutor to Allen Bathurst, afterwards first Earl Bathurst, whose father Sir Benjamin was treasurer of the household of the princess, afterwards Queen Anne. Probably through this connection he was appointed French teacher to her son Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, for whose use he prepared and to whom he dedicated "The Complete French Master", published in 1694. Disappointed of advancement on account of his zeal for Whig principles, he abandoned tuition for authorship.