Selected Pages

Palacio Valdés, Armando, 1853-1938Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.8

Word count: 476K words
Chapters: 48

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Páginas escogidas by Armando Palacio ValdésAuthor: Palacio Valdés, Armando, 1853-1938,Language: Spanish, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Apr 13, 2012

Editor's review

Páginas escogidas is a selection from the Spanish writer Armando Palacio Valdés, in Spanish. Palacio Valdés is known for his gentle realist touch and his depictions of provincial life, and his works often carry warmth and irony. This selection lets readers encounter different facets of his essays and fiction in relatively short pieces and observe how he presents social customs and character through everyday scenes. For readers studying Spanish or researching nineteenth-century Spanish literature, it can serve as an introduction and supplementary reading. While reading, note the shifts in the narrator's tone and the author's choices in detailing local life.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Spanish majors who can use it as supplementary literary reading
Readers interested in nineteenth-century Spanish literature and depictions of customs
Readers who want to understand Palacio Valdés's style through short selections
Self-learners with some Spanish who wish to improve their literary reading ability

Not a good fit for

Readers with no Spanish at all who need a Chinese translation
Readers seeking only tightly plotted long novels
General casual readers with little interest in Spanish literary background

Reading tips

Read the table of contents first and arrange the reading order by length, starting with the shorter pieces.
Mark unfamiliar words and expressions while reading to build common literary Spanish vocabulary.
After each piece, summarize the scene and character relationships in a few sentences to check comprehension.
Use background material on nineteenth-century Spanish society to understand the depictions of customs.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Can I read this book without any Spanish?

The original is in Spanish, and reading it directly without any Spanish would be difficult. It is advisable to have some vocabulary and grammar first, or to read with bilingual materials and a dictionary before gradually moving to the original.

Is this selection suitable for Spanish learners?

It suits Spanish learners with some foundation. The pieces are relatively independent, making it easy to read in segments and build literary vocabulary. Start with the shorter pieces, using notes or introductions, and gradually adapt to the author's sentence patterns and narrative rhythm.

Do I need to know the author's background before reading?

You need not study the author's life systematically first, but some general background on nineteenth-century Spanish literature helps. Readers can first read one or two pieces to get a feel for the style, then fill in the social and literary knowledge of the author's era to deepen their understanding of the text.

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About the author

Palacio Valdés, Armando, 1853-1938 Author

Armando Palacio Valdés (1853–1938) was a Spanish novelist. Thirty-two of his works are held in this collection, though public information about his life is limited and biographical details remain unclear. He is known chiefly for his novels of manners; the subtitle of his representative work Marta y María: novela de costumbres explicitly identifies it as a novel of customs, devoted to local settings and everyday human relations. Works such as Los majos de Cádiz and La hermana San Sulpicio likewise draw on Spanish urban and rural life, with a gentle tone that blends realism and lyricism. He also wrote La alegría del capitán Ribot, La Espuma, Riverita, and the two-volume The Fourth Estate, whose subjects range across social life and class observation. His works circulated widely in the Spanish-speaking world, some were translated into English, and he belongs to the realist novel tradition in Spain from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century.