born May 10, 1843, Las Palmas, Canary Islands, Spain
died Jan. 4, 1920, Madrid
Spanish novelist.
In the 1870s he began a cycle of 46 short historical novels, Episodios nacionales (18731912), that earned him comparison with Honoré de Balzac and Charles Dickens . Some of his finest works chronicle contemporary Spain, including The Disinherited Lady (1881) and his masterpiece, Fortunata y Jacinta (188687), a study of two unhappily married women. His earlier works show a reforming zeal and anticlericalism, but after the 1880s he displayed greater sympathy for Spain and its idiosyncrasies, as in Nazarín (1895), Compassion (1897), and a series featuring the character Torquemada. He also wrote plays, some very popular but of less artistic value. He was regarded as Spain's greatest novelist since Miguel de Cervantes .