Froth: A Novel

FROTH
Heinemann's International Library.
Edited by EDMUND GOSSE.
Crown 8vo , in paper covers , 2 s. 6 d. , or cloth limp , 3 s. 6 d.
IN GOD'S WAY. By Björnstjerne Björnson. Translated from the Norwegian by Elizabeth Carmichael. PIERRE AND JEAN. By Guy de Maupassant. Translated from the French by Clara Bell. THE CHIEF JUSTICE. By Karl Emil Franzos. Translated from the German by Miles Corbet. WORK WHILE YE HAVE THE LIGHT. By Count Lvof Tolstoï. Translated from the Russian by E. J. Dillon, Ph.D. FANTASY. By Matilde Serao. Translated from the Italian by Henry Harland and Paul Sylvester. FROTH. By Armando Palacio Valdés. Translated from the Spanish by Clara Bell. THE COMMODORE'S DAUGHTERS. By Jonas Lie. Translated from the Norwegian by H. L. Brækstad and Gertrude Hughes.
Other Volumes will be announced later. Each Volume contains a specially written Introduction by the Editor.
London: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford St., W.C.
A NOVEL BY ARMANDO PALACIO VALDÉS TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH BY C L A R A B E L L LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1891 ( All rights reserved )
ACCORDING to the Spanish critics, the novel has flourished in Spain during only two epochs—the golden age of Cervantes and the period in which we are still living. That unbroken line of romance-writing which has existed for so long a time in France and in England, is not to be looked for in the Peninsula. The novel in Spain is a re-creation of our own days; but it has made, since the middle of the nineteenth century, two or three fresh starts. The first modern Spanish novelists were what are called the walter-scottistas , although they were inspired as much by George Sand as by the author of Waverley . These writers were of a romantic order, and Fernan Caballero, whose earliest novel dates from 1849, was at their head. The Revolution of September, 1868, marked an advance in Spanish fiction, and Valera came forward as the leader of a more national and more healthily vitalised species of imaginative work. The pure and exquisite style of Valera is, doubtless, only to be appreciated by a Castilian. Something of its charm may be divined, however, even in the English translation of his masterpiece, Pepita Jimenez . The mystical and aristocratic genius of Valera appealed to a small audience; he has confided to the world that when all were praising but few were buying his books.