Benito Perez Galdos was the foremost Spanish novelist of the nineteenth century. His novels are frequently compared with those of Dickens and Balzac, and considered examples of nineteenth-century realism. In a speech before the Spanish Academy of Language, Galdos himself declared that the novel is 'an image of life'; scholars have often considered that image to be an uncritical reflection, or even a biased misrepresentation of the Spanish society of the time. This book shows, by detailed analysis of Galdos narrative techniques, how his novels display a much more skeptical and ironical...