ABSTRACT
It may be asserted that it was Cecilia Bohl de Faber, daughter of the German scholar who, under the pseudonym Fernan Caballero, founded the modern novel of Spain. Antonio de Trueba resembles her in some ways. When he journeyed to Madrid in 1836 to earn his living as clerk in his uncle's hardware store, he carried with him a homesick longing for the Basque country of his birth, to which he was to return later as official chronicler of Vizcaya. Trueba was a pure elegiac; Alarcon had the brilliant palette of a southern painter. Juan Valera y Alcala Galiano was a philosopher who hid sceptical tendencies under an optimistic surface; a subtle, penetrating moralist. Valera's novels are the writings that will keep his name alive. Pepita Jimenez was the first, and will probably remain the best known. Jose María de Pereda does as great honor to Spanish letters as Valera, but the two men form a striking contrast.
