Lorca read this paper for the first time on October 17, 1926 at the Ateneo de Granada (installed since this fall at the Cervantes Theater) inaugurating the season. There were several acts to pay tribute to Soto de Rojas.
He read the paper again at the Residencia de Estudiantes in 1928 and on March 12, 1930 he read it in Cuba, at the Teatro Principal de la Comedia in Havana, together with four other lectures, and it was very successful according to critics, audiences and box-offices.
The complete manuscript has not been preserved. García-Posada reproduces Maurer’s edition (Speeches, I, Alianza, 1984) based on five signed sheets plus the summary of The Defender of Granada of October 19, 1926, exhumed by Marie Laffranque.