Hartzenbusch's twelve-volume edition of Tirso de Molina (1839-42) is incomplete, but it is greatly superior to the selection in Rivadeneyra, vol. v. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's monograph on Tirso (1893) contains many new facts, stated with great precision and lucidity. Hartzenbusch's edition of Ruiz de Alarcón in Rivadeneyra, vo. xx., is the best and fullest.
Calderón's editions are numerous, but none are really good. Keil's (Leipzig, 1827) is the most complete; Hartzenbusch's, which fills vols. vii., ix., xii., and xiv. of Rivadeneyra, is the easiest to obtain, and is sufficient for most purposes. Mr. Norman MacColl's Select Plays of Calderon (1888) deserves special mention for its excellent introduction and judicious notes. M. Morel-Fatio's edition of El Mágico Prodigioso is a model of skill and accuracy. Two small collections of Calderón's verse were published at Cádiz, 1845, and at Madrid, 1881. Archbishop Trench's monograph (1880) and Miss E. J. Hasell's study (1879) are deservedly well known. D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's lectures, Calderón y su Teatro (1881) are full of sound, impartial criticism. Friedrich Wilhelm Valentin Schmidt's Die Schauspiele Calderon's (Elberfeld, 1857) maintains its place by virtue of its sound and sympathetic criticism. The history of the autos is fully given by Eduardo González Pedroso in Rivadeneyra, vol. lviii. Edmund Dorer's Die Calderon-Litteratur in Deutschland (Leipzig, 1881) is useful and unpretending. D. Antonio Sánchez Moguel's study (1881) of the relation between the Mágico Prodigioso and Goethe's Faust is learned and ingenious, and D. Antonio Rubió y Lluch's Sentimiento del Honor en el Teatro de Calderón (Barcelona, 1882) is a very suggestive essay.
The select plays of Rojas Zorrilla and Moreto are contained in Rivadeneyra, vols. xxxix. and liv. There exists no good edition of Gracián: Carl Borinski's study entitled Baltasar Gracián und die Hoflitteratur in Deutschland (Halle, 1894) is a very commendable book, and M. Arturo Farinelli's criticism in the Revista crítica, vol. ii., is not only learned, but is warm in its appreciation of Gracián's perverse talent.
CHAPTER XI
An almost complete record of eighteenth-century literature is supplied by Sr. D. Leopoldo Augusto de Cueto, Marqués de Valmar, in his Histórica Crítica de la poesía castellana en el siglo XVIII. (1893), a revised and augmented edition of the classic preface to Rivadeneyra, vols. lxi., lxiii., and lxvii. D. Emilio Cotarelo y Mori's invaluable Iriarte y su época (1897) sheds much light on the literary history of the period, and D. Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo's Historia de las Ideas estéticas en España (vol. iii. part ii., 1886) should be read as a complement to all other works. Antonio María Alcalá Galiano's Historia de la literatura española, francesa, inglesa, é italiano en el siglo XVIII. (1845) is acute, but somewhat obsolete. I should recommend as an honest, useful monograph the life of Sarmiento published under the title of El Gran Gallego (La Coruña, 1895) by D. Antolín López Peláez.
CHAPTERS XII AND XIII
The only summary of the period is Padre Francisco Blanco García's Literatura Española en el siglo XIX. (1891): it is extremely uncritical, and is marred by violent personal prejudices intemperately expressed. But it has the merit of existing, and embodies useful information in the way of facts. Gustave Hubbard's Histoire de la littérature contemporaine en Espagne (1876) and Boris de Tannenberg's La Poésie castellane contemporaine (1892) are pleasant but slight. Pedro de Novo y Colsón's Autores dramáticos contemporaneos y joyas del teatro español del siglo XIX. (1881-85), with a preface by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, is conscientiously put together, and will be found very serviceable.
Footnote:
[32] Unless otherwise stated, it is to be understood that, of the books named in this list, the Spanish are issued at Madrid, the English at London, and the French at Paris.