Spanish writer famous for his Cartas marruecas (1793; “Moroccan Letters”), in which a Moorish traveler in Spain makes penetrating criticisms of Spanish life. Educated in Madrid, Cadalso traveled widely and, although he hated war, enlisted in the army against the Portuguese during the Seven Years' War. His prose satire Los eruditos a la violeta (1772; “Wise Men Without Learning”), directed against the pseudo-learned, was his most popular work.

Although influenced by the classics, as seen in his neoclassical drama Sancho García (1771) and his anacreontic verse in Ocios de mi juventud (1773; “Diversions of My Youth”), Cadalso is considered a forerunner of Spanish Romanticism because of his Noches lúgubres (1789–90; “Sombre Nights”), an autobiographical prose work inspired by the death of his love, the actress María Ignacia Ibáñez.