Zorro (novel) young man left California and was educated in Spain, before returning to don the Zorro mask. A speculative attempt to fuse together these disparate accounts is found in the on-line article "Legacy of the Fox". A young adult novel, "Young Zorro: The Iron Brand", was published at around the same time as Allende's novel. It was written by young adult author and illustrator Jan Adkins, a technical advisor for Allende's story. It is the story of how Spanish Alta California, Pueblo de Los Angeles, and the Californio vaquero heritage at the beginning of the 19th century shaped fifteen-year-old Diego de
Zorro popularity thanks to the Disney series. In "The Curse of Capistrano," Señor Zorro became an outlaw in the pueblo of Los Angeles in California "to avenge the helpless, to punish cruel politicians, to aid the oppressed" and is dubbed the "Curse of Capistrano". The novel features extensively both Don Diego Vega and Zorro, but the fact that they are the same person is not revealed to the reader until the end of the book. In the story, both Diego and Zorro romance Lolita Pulido, an impoverished noblewoman. While Lolita is unimpressed with Diego, who pretends to be a passionless fop,