Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (1824-1905), one of 19th-century Spain's most well known authors, had a career in the diplomatic service with postings in Europe and the Americas. A serious student of his own and foreign literatures, Valera wrote novels, short stories, essays and literary criticism. Fluent in a number of languages, he also translated Longus's Daphne and Chloe from Greek into Spanish. The unifying thread of his creative work is "art for art's sake," that is, beauty as the end and purpose of imaginative literature, an ideal epitomised by Pepita Jiménez , long considered one of the best half dozen novels of 19th-century Spain. When it was first published in 1874, Pepita Jiménez became an instant success. Translations abound, as do the number of editions, upwards of fifteen, many of them annotated, some of them illustrated. It tells of Luis de Vargas, a devout twenty-two-year-old seminarian who has come home to visit with his father before entering the priesthood. The storyline unfolds when he meets a comely twenty-year-old widow named Pepita Jiménez and has his religious calling put to the test. On the heels of a fictitious prologue, Valera gives the reader multiple perspectives. The first part of the novel is epistolary in form, letters that Luis writes to the Dean, who is both his uncle and his mentor at the seminary, and everything - people, places, and activities - is filtered through his eyes. The second part reverts to the traditional all-seeing narrator of the realist novel, while the third consists of letters that Pedro de Vargas, Luis's father, writes to his brother the Dean.
Content with her tertuha, or gathering of close friends, her devotions, her books, and her daily routine, Dona Luz is unmoved by the prospect of marriage, because of her illegitimacy and her extremely modest financial status." "But then two men enter her life: Father Enrique, the ailing missionary nephew of Don Acisclo who returns from the Philippines to rest, and Don Jaime Pimentel, the dashing young military man whom Don Acisclo has chosen to back as the district representative in an uncoming election. How Dona Luz responds to both men determines the direction her life will take and the manner in which her illegitimacy will be explained."--Jacket.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
First published in Spanish in Madrid in 1897, this title suggests the idea of predestination: we are as we are and cannot do anything about it; the leopard cannot change its spots.
Don Faustino Lopez de Mendoza, scion of an illustrious but impoverished family of the highest nobility, believes himself destined for great accomplishments in the literary world, sees himself as a poet of the first rank, and immerses himself in grand, if not grandiose, illusions. While living in a provincial Andalusian town and dreaming of triumphing in Madrid's artistic circles, Faustino embarks on a discovery of love with three women. How he extricates himself from each relationship and meets his sad end constitutes the denouement of this searching novel that depicts the deleterious effects of the Romantic malaise that swept through western Europe in the early part of the nineteenth century."--BOOK JACKET.
Juanita la Larga (1896), the third of Juan Valera's eponymous novels with a female protagonist, unfolds in a small town in nineteenth-century Spain and tells the story of a young girl's romance with a wealthy widower many years her senior.
Juan Valera y Alcala-Galiano (1824-1905), was a Spanish realist author, writer and political figure, best known for Pepita Jimenez which depicts a young seminarian's gradual of the empty vanity of his vocation, culminating in a shattering denouement. Armando Palacio Valdes (1853-1938) was a Spanish novelist and critic. His Marta y Maria portrays of the struggle between religious vocation and earthly passion, somewhat in the manner of Valera.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
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