Maria de Bell-lloc, real name Maria del Pilar Maspons i Labrós, was born in Barcelona in 1841 to a Catalan intellectual family and, as a writer and translator, shaped the Renaixença, the cultural rebirth of Catalonia in the 19th century. Under her pseudonym, which referred to the medieval Catalan knight Ramon de Bell-lloc, she published poems and prose in magazines such as Lo Gay Saber and La Veu de Montserrat from the 1860s onwards and appeared in the Jocs Florals, the traditional poetry competitions, where she was honoured in 1875 for her work Narracions i llegendes. As a member of the literary Maspons family - her brother Manuel Maspons i Labrós was also an author - she dedicated herself to the preservation of Catalan folklore and translated works by European authors into Catalan. Despite her conservative, monarchist attitude, she was committed to the emancipation of women. She died in Barcelona in 1907.