La Regenta, by Leopoldo Alas (Clarin), is considered a (if not the) great masterpiece of Spanish Realist and Naturalist fiction, comparable only to Benito Perez Galdos' Fortunata y Jacinta. Staged in Oviedo (Vetusta, in the novel), La Regenta's main character is the beautiful and sensitive Ana Ozores, newlywed to the mature Victor Quintanar, former regent of the Audiencia. Harassed by the local seducer, Alvaro Mesia, and by the local cathedral's Dean, don Fermin de Pas, Ana finally rejects the priest and falls for Alvaro. Don Victor discovers the treason and, pushed by don Fermin, challenges...

Alvaro Retana (1890-1970), who many consider The Spanish Petronius, belongs to that lighthearted erotic literature trend popular during the early twentieth Century, that became known in Spain as Sicalipsis (from ancient Greek sykon -fig, or vulva- and aleiptikos -to stimulate). In open opposition to the somber and solemn Spanish '98 generation, and other representatives of the so called high culture, Retana's popular erotic novelettes showcased the smiling and playful face of a country that during the 1920s and 1930s openly embraced European modernity and stood up to its challenges, among...

El Cura. (Caso de Incesto) Novela medico social (The Priest. Case of Incest. Medical-Social Novel) (1885) constitutes, together with La Regenta (1884-1885) by Leopoldo Alas, a.k.a. Clarin, one of the best Spanish examples of anti-clerical literature, and yet another example of Spain's increasing move towards secularization during the second half of the XIX Century. El Cura (Caso de Incesto) is the first novel of a trilogy -integrated also by El Confesionario (Satiriasis) (The Confessional - Satyriasis) (1885) and La Monja (The Nun) (1886)- that contests Christian sexual moral authority and...