Presents translations of Torquemada at the Stake, Torquemada on the Cross, Torquemada in Purgatory, and Torquemada and Saint Peter.

Benito Perez Galdos has been described as 'the greatest Spanish novelist since Cervantes.' His work constitutes a major contribution to the nineteenth-century novel, rivalling that of Dickens of Balzac and making him an essential candidate for any course on the fiction of the period. Jo Labanyi's study is supported by a wide-rangting introduction, a section of contemporary comment, headnotes to each piece and helpful appendix material.

Galdos (1843-1920) ranks alongside such 19th-century realists as Dickens, Balzac, and Tolstoy. Throughtout his writings, Galdos chronicles the public and private life of Madrid during its formative years as a modern city. This novella recounts an avaricious moneylender's attempts to restore his son's failing health through acts of charity. Dual-language edition.

Galdoz's four-part Fortunata and Jacinta (1886-7), the masterpiece among his almost 80 novels, tells the turbulent story of two women, their husbands and their lovers, set against the intricate web of dynastic alliances and class contrasts of Madrid in the 1870s. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Maximo Manso, the narrator, gradually realizes that the characters in his story no longer have any use for him.