Elia o la Espana Treinta Anos Ha (Obras Completas de Fernan Caballero) [SPANISH TEXT]

xx, 361 pp. Blue leather spine, blue marbled boards, gilt titles on spine, marbled endpapers. Spanish text. Fernán Caballero (24 December 1796 – 7 April 1877) was the pseudonym of Spanish novelist Cecilia Francisca Josefa Böhl de Faber y Ruiz de Larrea. She was daughter of German writer Johann Nikolaus Böhl von Faber and Spanish writer Frasquita Larrea. Her pen name was adopted from that of a village in the province of Ciudad Real. Less successful attempts are Lady Virginia and Clemencia; but the short stories entitled Cuadros de Costumbres are interesting in matter and form, and Una en otra and Elia o la Espana treinta años ha are excellent specimens of picturesque narration. It would be difficult to maintain that Fernán Caballero was a great literary artist, but it is certain that she was a born teller of stories and that she has a graceful style very suitable to her purpose. She came into Spain at a most happy moment, before the new order had perceptibly disturbed the old, and she brought to bear not alone a fine natural gift of observation, but a freshness of vision, undulled by long familiarity. She combined the advantages of being both a foreigner and a native.