Now, for the first time, the stories of Spanish writer Leopoldo Alas have been translated into English. This is an important collection from a writer who is remembered as a master story-teller.

"The short stories explore themes that concern the interior person, the inner being. "A Day Laborer" tells of a liberal intellectual who can identify with exploited laborers because he himself has been exploited; "Change of Light" describes the spiritual peace that comes to a writer as a result of physical blindness; "The Golden Rose" shows through a series of contrasts - good and evil, heaven and earth, light and darkness - that virtue and sacrifice are rewarded; "Queen Margaret" chronicles the misery of failed opera singers who find happiness after leaving the short-lived glory of the theater; "Torso" relates the faithfulness of a servant who is rejected by a young master; "The Burial of the Sardine," with echoes of Francisco de Goya, represents the ephemeral nature of joy as experienced during Shrovetide in a city dominated by the clergy; and "Two Scholars" recounts how envy and vanity affect a personal relationship."--BOOK JACKET.

Novelist-critic Leopoldo Alas's reputation suffered neglect and silent reproval during much of the twentieth century, especially under the Franco regime, but his reputation has now achieved classic status in Spain. Clearly related to this is the great increase in the number of translations - Julian Barnes called La Regenta 'the foreign classic tardily discovered'. This bibliography picks up where the first one left off in 1984. It is divided into primary material and secondary material. Primary material includes: Anthologies and Selections; Criticism; Novels; Short Story Collections; Plays; Correspondence; Prologues; Reprints; Translations; and Miscellaneous, with two new categories: autograph manuscripts and iconography.

Emilia Pardo Bazán was born in the Galician town of A Coruña into a noble family who nurtured her lifelong thirst for knowledge. She is undoubtedly the most controversial, influential and prolific Spanish female writer of the nineteenth century, publishing a vast number of essays, social commentaries, articles, reviews, poems, plays, novels, novellas and short stories. Her third novel, La Tribuna, heralds a new age in Spanish literature, a naturalist work of fiction that examines the situation of contemporary women workers. The author's preparation for the novel involved reading and consulting contemporary pamphlets and newspapers, as well as spending two months in a Galician tobacco factory observing and listening to conversations. This method, common in English writers like Dickens and frequently adopted in France by the masters of Realism, was almost unprecedented in Spain. Set against a background of turmoil and civil unrest, La Tribuna reflects the author's interest in the position of women in Spanish society. The working-class heroine, Amparo, develops from a shapeless, apolitical street urchin into a masterpiece of femininity, a charismatic orator who becomes a 'tribune' of the people. At the same time, however, she allows herself to be seduced by a prosperous middle-class youth whose promises prove to be just as empty as the revolutionary slogans in which she believes so fervently.

These 11 tales — published between 1870 and 1900 — are by 4 outstanding authors who brought new life to Spanish literature: Juan Valera, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, Leopoldo Alas ("Clarín"), and Emilia Pardo Bazán.