Benito María de los Dolores Pérez Galdós (; 10 May 1843 – 4 January 1920) was a Spanish realist novelist and politician. He was a leading literary figure in 19th-century Spain, and some scholars consider him second only to Miguel de Cervantes in stature as a Spanish novelist.

Pérez Galdós was a prolific writer, publishing 31 major novels, 46 historical novels in five series, 23 plays, and the equivalent of 20 volumes of shorter fiction, journalism and other writings. but his opposition to religious authorities led him to be boycotted by conservative sectors of Spanish society, and traditionalist Catholics, who did not recognize his literary merit. At the beginning of the 20th century he joined the Republican Party and was elected deputy to the Madrid cortes for the Republican–Socialist Conjunction in the legislatures of 1907 and 1910. In 1914 he was elected deputy for Las Palmas.

Childhood and first years

Pérez Galdós was born on 10 May 1843 in Calle Cano in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in a house that is now the Casa-Museo of Pérez Galdós. He was the tenth and last son of lieutenant colonel Don Sebastián Pérez and Doña Dolores Galdós. He was baptised Benito María de los Dolores at the church of San Francisco de Asís, (es) two days after his birth.

Pérez Galdós studied at San Agustín school, where he was taught by teachers trained in the principles of the enlightenment. In 1862, after completing his secondary studies, he travelled to Tenerife to obtain his certificate in bachillerato in arts. That same year he moved to Madrid to start a law degree, which he did not complete. In 1868, Pérez Galdós' translation of Pickwick Papers introduced Dickens' work to the Spanish public. In 1870, Pérez Galdós was appointed editor of La Revista de España and began to express his opinions on a wide range of topics from history and culture, to politics and literature. Between 1867 and 1868, he wrote his first novel, La Fontana de Oro, a historical work set in the period 1820–1823. With the help of money from his sister-in-law, it was published privately in 1870. Critical reaction was slow, but this was eventually hailed as the beginning of a new phase in Spanish fiction, and was highly praised for its literary quality as well as for its social and moral purpose.

  1. The early works from La Fontana de Oro up to La familia de León Roch (1878). The best known of these is Doña Perfecta (1876), which describes the impact made by the arrival of a young radical on a stiflingly clerical town. In Marianela (1878) a young man regains his eyesight after a life of blindness and rejects his best friend Marianela for her ugliness.
  2. The novelas españolas contemporáneas, from La desheredada (1881) to Angel Guerra (1891), a loosely related series of 22 novels which are the author's major claim to literary distinction, including his masterpiece Fortunata y Jacinta (1886–87). They are bound together by the device of recurring characters, borrowed from Balzac's La Comédie humaine. Fortunata y Jacinta is almost as long as War and Peace. It concerns the fortunes of four characters: a young man-about-town, his wife, his lower-class mistress, and her husband. The character of Fortunata is based on a real girl whom Pérez Galdós first saw in a tenement building in Madrid, drinking a raw egg – which is the way in which the fictional characters come to meet.
  3. The later novels of psychological investigation, many of which are in dialogue form.

Influences and characteristics

Pérez Galdós was a frequent traveller. His novels display a detailed knowledge of many cities, towns and villages across Spain – such as Toledo in Angel Guerra. He visited Great Britain on many occasions, his first trip being in 1883. The descriptions of the various districts and low-life characters that he encountered in Madrid, particularly in Fortunata y Jacinta, are similar to the approaches of Dickens and the French Realist novelists such as Balzac. which is also noteworthy for being told in the first person by an unreliable narrator who dies during the course of the work. This pre-dates similar experiments by André Gide such as L'immoraliste.

Pérez Galdós was also influenced by philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, made famous in Spain via the educationalist Francisco Giner de los Ríos. One example of this can be seen his novel El Amigo Manso (1882), but it is also clear that the mystical tendencies of krausismo led to his interest in the wisdom sometimes shown by people who appear to be mad. This is an important theme in the works of Pérez Galdós from Fortunata y Jacinta onwards, for example in Miau (1888) and his final novel La razón de la sinrazón.

All through his literary career, Pérez Galdós incurred the wrath of the Catholic press. He had been blind since 1912, was in financial difficulties and increasingly troubled by illness. Among those who nominated Pérez Galdós was the 1904 winner José Echegaray. So, the 1914 national board was established to raise money to help Pérez Galdós, to which the King and his Prime Minister Romanones were the first to subscribe. The outbreak of World War I led to the scheme being closed in 1916 with the money raised being less than half of what was required to clear his debts.

In the literary aspect, his admiration for the work of Tolstoy is reflected in a certain spiritualism in his last writings and, in the same Russian line, he could not conceal a certain pessimism for the destiny of Spain, as can be perceived in the pages of one of his last National Episodes, Cánovas (1912):

In 1897, Pérez Galdós was elected to the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy). After becoming blind he continued to dictate his books for the rest of his life. Pérez Galdós died at the age of 76. Shortly before his death, a statue in his honour was unveiled in the Parque del Buen Retiro, the most popular park in Madrid, financed solely by public donations. And a ceremony was held in which Pérez Galdós participated. The writer, now blind, explored the statue's face with his hands and after recognizing it, he began to cry and said to the sculptor, a great friend of his, "Magnificent, my friend Macho, and how it looks like me!

Works

Early Novels

  • La Fontana de Oro (1870)
  • La Sombra (1871)
  • El Audaz (1871)
  • Doña Perfecta (1876)
  • Gloria (1877)
  • Marianela (1878)
  • La Familia de León Roch (1878)

Novelas Españolas Contemporáneas

  • La Desheredada (1881)
  • El Amigo Manso (1882)
  • El Doctor Centeno (1883)
  • Tormento (1884)
  • La de Bringas (1884)
  • Lo Prohibido (1884–85)
  • Fortunata y Jacinta (1886–87)
  • Celín, Tropiquillos y Theros (1887)
  • Miau (1888)
  • La Incógnita (1889)
  • Torquemada en la Hoguera (1889)
  • Realidad (1889)
  • Ángel Guerra (1891)

Later Novels

  • Tristana (1892)
  • Torquemada en la Cruz (1893)
  • La Loca de la Casa (1893)
  • Torquemada en el Purgatorio (1894)
  • Torquemada y San Pedro (1895)
  • Nazarín (1895)
  • Halma (1895)
  • Misericordia (1897)
  • El Abuelo (1897)
  • Casandra (1905)
  • El Caballero Encantado (1909)
  • La Razón de la Sinrazón (1915)

Episodios Nacionales

  • Episodios Nacionales

Plays

  • Quien Mal Hace, Bien no Espere (1861, lost)
  • La Expulsión de los Moriscos (1865, lost)
  • Un Joven de Provecho (1867?, published in 1936)
  • Realidad (1892)
  • La Loca de la Casa (1893)
  • Gerona (1893)
  • La de San Quintín (1894)
  • Los Condenados (1895)
  • Voluntad (1896)
  • Doña Perfecta (1896)
  • La Fiera (1897)
  • Electra (1901)
  • Alma y Vida (1902)
  • Mariucha (1903)
  • El Abuelo (1904)
  • Barbara (1905)
  • Amor y Ciencia (1905)
  • Pedro Minio (1908)
  • Zaragoza (1908)
  • Casandra (1910)
  • Celia en los Infiernos (1913)
  • Alceste (1914)
  • Sor Simona (1915)
  • El Tacaño Salomón (1916)
  • Santa Juana de Castilla (1918)
  • Antón Caballero (1922, unfinished)

Short stories

  • Una industria que vive de la muerte. Episodio musical del cólera (1865)
  • Necrología de un proto-tipo (1866)
  • La conjuración de las palabras. Cuento alegórico (1868)
  • El artículo de fondo (1871)
  • La mujer del filósofo (1871)
  • La novela en el tranvía (1871)
  • Un tribunal literario (1872)
  • Aquél (1872)
  • La pluma en el viento o el viaje de la pluma (1873)
  • En un jardín (1876)
  • La mula y el buey (1876)
  • El verano (1876)
  • La princesa y el granuja (1877)
  • El mes de junio (1878)
  • Theros (1883)
  • La tienda-asilo (1886)
  • Celín (1889)
  • Tropiquillos (1893)
  • El Pórtico de la Gloria (1896)
  • Rompecabezas (1897)
  • Rura (1901)
  • Entre copas (1902)
  • La república de las letras (1905)

Miscellaneous

  • Crónicas de Portugal (1890)
  • Discurso de Ingreso en la Real Academia Española (1897)
  • Memoranda, Artículos y Cuentos (1906)
  • Política Española I (1923)
  • Política Española II (1923)
  • Arte y Crítica (1923)
  • Fisonomías Sociales (1923)
  • Nuestro Teatro (1923)
  • Cronicón 1883 a 1886 (1924)
  • Toledo. Su historia y su Leyenda (1927)
  • Viajes y Fantasías (1929)
  • Memorias (1930)

Works translated into English

In the United Kingdom

Novels

  • Gloria (1879. London: Remington and Co. Translated by Natham Wetherell; 1883. Trübner & Co. Translated by Clara Bell)
  • Doña Perfecta, a tale of Modern Spain (1886. London: Samuel Tinsley, Translated by D. P. W.)
  • Marianela (1893. London: Digby, Long. Translated by Mary Wharton)
  • Doña Perfecta (1894. London: The Fisher Unwin. Translated by Mary Wharton; 1999. London: Widenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. Translated by A. K. Tulloch; 2009. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Translated by Graham Whittaker)
  • The Spendthrifts [La de Bringas] (1951. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The Illustrated Novel Library. Translated by Gamel Woolsey; 1953. London: Reader's Union. Translated by Gamel Woolsey)
  • Torment [Tormento] (1952. London: Widenfeld & Nicolson Ltd. Translated by J. M. Cohen)
  • Miau (1963. London: Methuen. Translated by J. M. Cohen)
  • Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women [Fortunata y Jacinta] (1973. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Translated by Lester Clarck)
  • La desheredada (1976. London: The Folio Society. Translated by Lester Clarck)
  • Torquemada on the Fire [Torquemada en la hoguera] (1985. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. Translated by Nicholas Round)
  • Fortunata and Jacinta [Fortunata y Jacinta] (1987. London: Viking. Translated by Agnes Moncy Gullón; 1992. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Translated by Harriet S. Turner; 1998. London: Penguin Books. Translated by Agnes Moncy Gullón)
  • Torquemada (1988. London: André Deutsch. Translated by Frances M. López-Morillas)
  • Nazarín (1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Translated by Jo Labanyi)
  • Misericordia (1995. Santry: Dedalus. Translated by Charles de Salis; 2007. Madrid: Isidora. Revista de Estudios Galdosianos no. 3, pp. 6–293. Translated by Robert H. Russell; 2013. Madrid: Ediciones. Translated by Robert H. Russell)
  • That Bringas Woman: The Bringas Family [La de Bringas] (1996. London: Phoenix. Translated by Catherine Jagoe)
  • Tristana (1996. London: Bristol Classical Press; 1998. London: Duckworth Publishers; 1998. London: Bloomsbury Publishing; 2016. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Translated by Pablo Valdivia)
  • Inferno [Tormento] (1998. London: Phoenix House (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). Translated by Abigail Lee Six)
  • Halma (2015. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Translated by Robert S. Rudder, Ignacio López-Calvo)

Episodios Nacionales

  • Trafalgar (1905/1921/1951. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Translated by Frederick Alexander Kirkpatrick)

Plays

  • Meow. A Tragicomedy [Miau] (2014. Liverpool: Aris & Phillips Hispanic Classics. Translated by Ruth Katz Crispin)

Short stories

  • The Conspiracy of Words [La conjuración de las palabras] ( 2007. Madrid: Isidora. Revista de Estudios Galdosianos no. 4, pgs. 165–170. Translated by Robert H. Russell)

In the United States

Novels

  • Gloria (1882. New York: William S. Gottsberger Publisher. Translated by Clara Bell; 2012. Miami: Editorial Rarebooksclub. Translated by N. Wetherell)
  • Doña Perfecta (1884. New York: Gottsberger. Translated by Clara Bell; 1883. New York: George Munro, Publisher. Translated by D. P. W.; 1885. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Translated by Mary jane Serrano; 1940 New York: P. F. Collier & Son; 1960. New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc. Translated by Harriet de Onís; 2013. Miami: Editorial Rarebooksclub. Translated by D. P. W)
  • Marianela (1883. New York: William S. Gottsberger Publisher. Translated by Clara Bell; 2013. Miami: Editorial Rarebooksclub; 2015. Scholar's Choice Publisher. Translated by Mary Wharton)
  • La familia de León Roch (1888. New York: William S. Gottsberger Publisher. Translated by Clara Bell)
  • Marianela: A Story of Spanish Love [Marianela] (1892. Chicago: A.C. McClurg and Company. Translated by Hellen W. Lester)
  • The Spendthrifts [La de Bringas] (1952. New York: Farrar Straus & Young. The Illustrated Novel Library. Translated by Gamel Woolsley; 2013. Miami: Editorial Rarebooksclub)
  • Tristana (1961. Peterborough, NH: R. R. Smith. Translated by R. Selden-Rose. 2014. Review Books Classics. New York: ReadHowYouWant. Translated by Margarte Jull Costa)
  • Compassion [Misericordia] (1962. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. Translated by Toby Talbot)
  • El amigo Manso (1963. New York: Oxford University Press)
  • Miau (1970. New York: Oxford University Press. Translated by Eduard R. Mulvihill, Roberto G. Sánchez)
  • León Roch: a Romance [La familia de León Roch] (1974. New York: Howard Ferting. Translated by Clara Bell)
  • The Shadow [La sombra] (1980. Ohio: Ohio University Press. Translated by Karen O. Austin)
  • Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women [Fortunata y Jacinta] (1986. Georgia: University of Georgia Press. Translated by Agnes Moncy Gullón)
  • Torquemada novels: Torquemada at the Stake – Torquemada on the Cross – Torquemada in Purgatory – Torquemada and Saint Peter [Torquemada en la hoguera. Torquemada en la Cruz. Torquemada en el Purgatorio. Torquemada y San Pedro] (1986. New York: Columbia University Press. Translated by Frances M. López-Morillas)
  • The Golden Fountain Café: a Historic Novel of the XIXth Century [La Fontana de Oro] (1989. Pittsburgh, PA: Latin American Literary Review Press. Translated by Walten Rubin et al.)
  • Our Friend Manso [El amigo Manso] (1987. New York: Columbia University Press. Translated by Robert Russell)
  • Ángel Guerra (1990. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. Translated by Karen O. Austin)
  • The Unknown [La incógnita](1991. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. Translated by Karen O. Austin)
  • Reality [Realidad] (1992. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. Translated by Karen O. Austin)
  • The Cape of Don Francisco Torquemada: 1.Torquemada in the Bonfire. 2. Torquemada on the Cross. 3. Torquemada in Purgatory. 4. Torquemada and Saint Peter [Torquemada en la hoguera. Torquemada en la Cruz. Torquemada en el Purgatorio. Torquemada y San Pedro] (1996. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press. Translated by Robert G. Trimble)
  • Nazarín (1997. Pittsburgh, PA: Latin American Literary Review Press. Translated by Robert S. Ruder, Gloria Chacón de Arjona)
  • Torquemada at the Stake [Torquemada en la hoguera] (2004. Mineola, New York: Dover. Translated by Stanley Appel Baum)
  • Dona Perfecta [Doña Perfecta] (2009. ReadHowYouWant Publisher. Easy Read Edition; 2014. United States: Independent Publishing-Platform)
  • Halma (2010. Volume 69. Charleston: Nabu Press)

Works about Pérez Galdós

  • Alfieri, J.J. (1968). "Galdós Revaluated (sic)" Books Abroad, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 225–226.
  • Bishop, William Henry (1917). "Benito Pérez Galdós." In: The Warner Library. New York: Knickerbocker Press, pp. 6153–6163.
  • Chamberlin, Vernon A. (1964). "Galdós' Use of Yellow in Character Delineation," PMLA, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 158–163.
  • Ellis, Havelock (1906). "The Spirit of Present Day Spain," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 98, pp. 757–765.
  • Geddes Jr., James (1910). "Introduction." In: Marianela. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., pp. iii–xvi.
  • Glascock, C.C. (1923). "Spánish Novelist: Benito Perez Galdos," Texas Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 158–177.
  • Gómez Martínez, José Luis (1983). "Galdós y el Krausismo español" Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 55–79.
  • Huntington, Archer M. (1897). "Perez Galdós in the Spanish Academy," The Bookman, Vol. V, pp. 220–222.
  • Karimi, Kian-Harald (2007): Jenseits von altem Gott und 'Neuem Menschen'. Präsenz und Entzug des Göttlichen im Diskurs der spanischen Restaurationsepoche. Frankf./M.: Vervuert.
  • Keniston, Hayward (1920). "Galdós, Interpreter of Life," Hispania, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 203–206.
  • Madariaga, Salvador de (1920). "The Genius of Spain," Contemporary Review, Vol. 117, pp. 508–516.
  • Miller, W. (1901). "The Novels of Pérez Galdós," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 291, pp. 217–228.
  • Pattison, Walter T. (1954). Benito Pérez Galdós and the Creative Process. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  • Ridao Carlini, Inma (2018): Rich and Poor in Nineteenth-Century Spain: A Critique of Liberal Society in the Later Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
  • Waldeck, R.W. (1904). "Benito Pérez Galdós, Novelist, Dramatist and Reformer" The Critic, Vol. 45, No. 5, pp. 447–449.
  • Warshaw, J. (1929). "Galdós's Apprenticeship in the Drama," Modern Language Notes, Vol. 44, No. 7, pp. 459–463.

Pérez Galdós museum

The Pérez Galdós museum (Casa-Museo Pérez Galdós in Spanish) is located in Triana, in the centre of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The house where Pérez Galdós was born was acquired in 1954 by the cabildo de Gran Canaria, and inaugurated on 9 July 1960 by María Pérez Galdós Cobián, the writer's daughter.

In the museum visitors can see the house where the writer grew up, as well as a display of documents, furniture, musical instruments, paintings and photos that belonged to the writer and his family. The aim of the museum is the conservation, study and dissemination of the legacy of Pérez Galdós. The management of the museum has supported international congresses, conferences and exhibitions, and has developed a publishing line. The museum also has a library with numerous works by Pérez Galdós in different languages, as well as the author's complete collection.

Notes

References

Sources

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  • Benito Pérez Galdós at Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library
  • Pérez Galdós House Museum
  • Brochure (in English)
  • Map (in English)
  • Guide (in English)
  • Tour (in Spanish)
  • Benito Pérez Galdós – (agosto 2011 — febrero 2013) fan site
  • Benito Pérez Galdós Published in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature (2004)
  • Benito Pérez Galdós Study Guide enotes