Benito Pérez Galdós
1843–1920
Biography
Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) was a Spanish novelist, playwright and politician. He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, and at nineteen he went to Madrid to study law, a move that tied him to the capital for the rest of his life. He lived through most of the political upheavals of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spain and wrote about them with a reporter's attention to detail. He started out politically as a liberal, later sided with the republicans, and eventually leaned toward socialism; he sat in the Cortes for several constituencies.
His output was very large. He published dozens of novels, including a long series of historical novels called the Episodios nacionales, about two dozen plays, and a great deal of journalism and shorter fiction. The Episodios retell Spain's wars and crises of the nineteenth century through the eyes of invented witnesses, while his realist novels of Madrid and the provinces examine class, religion and money with close attention to everyday life. His play Realidad, from 1892, is a landmark for stage realism in Spain. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1912 and never won it, and his criticism of the Church had cost him support in conservative circles.
Three of his works are in this library. Doña Perfecta is a novel of a provincial town where devout certainty collides with new ideas. Cádiz is one of the Episodios nacionales and takes the reader into the port city under siege during the Napoleonic wars. Ángel Guerra is a novel of inner conflict and moral choice. Between them they show the range of his concerns: the nation's history, the life of its provinces and the private conscience of its people.
This biography was written by a language model. The sources below are where to check it; treat details with care.
Books
Ángel Guerra
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Ángel Guerra, a restless political schemer, falls for the pious Leré and follows her into the religious fervour of Toledo, turning from revolutionary to would-be priest. One of Galdós's longest novels, it follows a man looking for love and for God at once. This book uses the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Cádiz
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Gabriel Araceli reaches Cádiz in 1810, where the Cortes meet under French bombardment and Spain's first liberal constitution is being drafted. Galdós sets his adventure and love story among the debates, rumours and street life of the besieged port.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Doña Perfecta
by Benito Pérez Galdós
A young engineer comes to the cathedral town of Orbajosa to marry his cousin and meets the iron will of her mother, Doña Perfecta, who hides her spite behind piety. Galdós's novel of provincial intolerance moves from polite conversation to open violence.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.El amigo Manso
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Máximo Manso, a quiet philosophy teacher, claims in the first lines that he is only a fiction, then describes his life, the pupil he tutors and the women who disturb his calm. Galdós's playful novel is narrated by a man who is both witness and character in the shifting society…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.El audaz
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Martín Muriel, a poor young man of the 1790s dazzled by the French Revolution, dreams of a Spanish republic while he courts a noblewoman far above him. Galdós follows his conspiracies and disappointments through a Madrid that watches Paris with fear and hope.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.El doctor Centeno
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Felipe Centeno, a ragged boy of Madrid who longs to become a doctor, passes through the hands of a string of eccentric masters and a ramshackle school. Galdós's novel is a comic and tender picture of education, poverty and ambition in the capital of the 1860s.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Gerona
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Gabriel Araceli joins the defenders of Gerona in 1809 as plague and starvation tighten the French siege. The Episodio nacional follows his duties and his love life against the city's long and costly refusal to surrender. This book uses the racial and other slurs of its period as…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Gloria
by Benito Pérez Galdós
A shipwreck brings a young Jewish stranger to the house of a devout Catholic family in a Spanish provincial town, and he and the daughter, Gloria, fall in love. Galdós turns their story into a drama of fanaticism and tolerance in nineteenth-century Spain.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.La corte de Carlos IV
by Benito Pérez Galdós
The young Gabriel Araceli sees at close quarters the court of Charles IV, the favourite Godoy and the scandals that lead to the Aranjuez mutiny. This Episodio nacional carries its hero from the palace corridors to the intrigue of 1808.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.La de Bringas
by Benito Pérez Galdós
In the royal palace of Madrid on the eve of the 1868 revolution, Rosalía Bringas, wife of a clerk, ruins her household's finances in pursuit of fine clothes. Galdós's sharp, funny novel finds in one woman's vanity the picture of a court on the edge of collapse.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.La familia de León Roch
by Benito Pérez Galdós
León Roch, a rationalist scientist, marries the pious María Egipciaca, and their opposite convictions turn the household into a battlefield of priests, relatives and old friends. Galdós uses the failing marriage to ask whether faith and modern thought can live under one roof.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.La fontana de oro
by Benito Pérez Galdós
A young man from the provinces arrives in Madrid in 1820 and is swept into the liberal talk of the Fontana de Oro café, while his love for his cousin and the schemes of a sinister uncle pull him another way. Galdós's first novel is a portrait of the capital in the heat of the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Lo prohibido
by Benito Pérez Galdós
José María Bueno de Guzmán, a rich bachelor back in Madrid, tells in his own words of the cousins he tried to win and of the money that slips through his hands. The novel is a long confession on desire, speculation and the weakness of will in the capital's high society. This…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Marianela
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Marianela, a plain, neglected girl, guides the blind young Pablo through the mining country around Socartes and is the only beauty he has ever known. When a surgeon restores his sight, the truth about her face threatens the love they share.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Miau
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Miau is a realist novel by Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, released in 1888. It tells a story about a lower-middle class family of Madrid in the 19th century. The main character is Ramón Villaamil, an ex-employee from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. He lives with his…
Summary from Wikipedia: Miau (CC BY-SA 4.0)Misericordia
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Benina, a poor servant, begs in the church doorways of Madrid to feed the ruined mistress she serves, and her humble charity shames everyone around her. Galdós's late novel finds the saint in the street and is often counted among his finest. This book uses the racial and other…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Nazarín
by Benito Pérez Galdós
A poor priest in Madrid tries to live the Gospel to the letter, giving away what little he has and walking the roads of La Mancha with two troubled women who follow him. Galdós's Christ-like hero meets the scorn of the world with a gentle, stubborn charity. This book uses the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Tormento
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Amparo, a poor seamstress with a past, is courted by a rich man returned from the Americas while a priest who loves her holds her to a secret that she dreads. Galdós's novel is a close study of respectability, hypocrisy and the narrow options open to a woman without money.
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Trafalgar
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Gabriel Araceli, a boy of Cádiz, tells how he served aboard the Santísima Trinidad at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The first of Galdós's Episodios nacionales mixes a child's eye view with the fall of Spain's fleet. This book uses the racial and other slurs of its period as…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Tristana
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Tristana, a young orphan living under the possessive love of the old Don Lope, longs for freedom and a career, and gives her heart to a young painter. Galdós traces the cost of their choices in a short novel far ahead of its time on the position of women. This book uses the…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.Zaragoza
by Benito Pérez Galdós
Gabriel Araceli goes to besieged Zaragoza in 1808 and lives through the French assault, the hunger and the stubborn resistance of the city's people. Galdós's best-known Episodio nacional puts a whole city's heroism into a single summer. This book uses the racial and other slurs…
Summary written by Claude Sonnet 5.5.