Lizardi, as he is generally known, was born in Mexico City when it was still the capital of the colonial Spanish viceroyalty of New Spain. His father, Manuel Fernández Lizalde, practiced as a physician in and around Mexico City, and who for a time supplemented the family income by writing. Likewise, his mother, Bárbara Gutiérrez, came from a family of modest but "decent" means; her own father had been a bookseller in the nearby city of Puebla.
