Jose Echegaray was a Spanish scholar and dramatist, born in Madrid about 1835. In 1858 he became professor of mathematics and physics in the School of Engineers in his native city, in which capacity he published many valuable works on science and mathematics. In 1868 he was made minister of commerce, minister of public instruction in 1873, and minister of finances in the following year. It is by his dramatic works, however, that he is best known, both at home and abroad. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904.