Juanita La Larga (1896), the third of Juan Valera's eponymous novels with a female protagonist, unfolds in a small town in nineteenth-century Spain and tells the story of a young girl's romance with a wealthy widower many years her senior. In addition to their substantial difference in years and class, the lovers must contend with the indignation of his imperious married daughter, the public rebuke of a churchman, and the strictures of society. As the novel opens, readers are introduced to Juanita in the exuberance of youth. We witness her maturation into a young woman and along the way we...

Este es un libro clave para entender la vision espanola de los movimientos de independencia americanos. He aqui un fragmento alusivo a esta cuestion: - que diferencia puede haber ni hubo nunca entre un espanol de Cuba o un espanol, verbigracia, de Malaga, de Loja o de Logrono? Los que alternan en Espana en el Poder, con turno mas o menos pacifico, los Narvaez, los Canovas y los Sagastas, no pudieron ser cubanos? Que inferioridad hemos supuesto nunca, ni por ley ni por costumbre, que exista entre un espanol de por aca y un espanol de por alla? La igualdad mas perfecta entre todos los espanoles...