In his study of the popular criollista literature, Adolfo Prieto explained its success in the late 19th century as an expression of the tensions brought on by “modernization According to this interpretation, Prieto argued that the phenomenon quickly disappeared in the 1920s. By studying the circulation of cheap editions of gaucho stories, and the profiles and careers of publishers and authors, this article proposes to relocate the extinction of this phenomenon in the early 1950s. In the last paragraphs, it also invites to consider alternative explanations of the popularity of criollismo.