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Índice

These Spanish Short Stories are, for the most part, realistic pictures of the manners and customs of modern Spain, written by masters of Spanish prose. All were written in the second half of the nineteenth century or in the first decade of the twentieth,—except the story by Larra, which was written about seventy-five years ago. And all describe recent conditions,—except the tale, partly historical and partly legendary, by Bécquer, which goes back to the invasion of Spain by the French under Napoleon in the early years of the nineteenth century; the story by Larra, which, however, is nearly as true of Castile to-day as it was when written; and Trueba's story, which is partly legendary, partly symbolic, and partly realistic. The stories by Bécquer and Pérez Galdós contain incidents that are supernatural, and those by Fernán Caballero and Alarcón have romantic settings that are highly improbable; but all the stories are, in the main, true to the every-day life of contemporary Spain.

The Spanish stories in this collection have been arranged, so far as possible, in the order of difficulty; but some instructors will doubtless prefer to read them in chronological order, or, better still, in an order determined by the "school", or literary affiliations, of each author. This latter arrangement is difficult to make, and it must be, at the best, somewhat arbitrary. But to those who wish to study in these stories the growth of contemporary Spanish fiction, it is suggested that the authors be taken up in the order in which they are given in the Introduction.

To the stories by Spanish authors have been added two by Spanish-American writers,—the one a native of Costa Rica, the other of Chile. These stories are excellent and well worth reading. For a fuller statement regarding them, see the last pages of the Introduction.

The texts have been taken from standard editions (see the first note to each story). The integrity of the texts has been scrupulously preserved, with only the two following changes: (1) the orthography has been made to conform to that of the latest editions of the Dictionary and the Grammar of the Royal Spanish Academy; and (2) a few omissions from the texts have been made, all of which are marked by five suspensive points (.....).

The Vocabulary contains the more irregular verb-forms, and it has also descriptions of the important places and biographies of the noted men and women that are mentioned in the texts.

The editors offer these Spanish Short Stories as suitable material to be read immediately after a beginners' book.

E. C. H.

L. R.