1
It is a pleasure to thank my colleague Seymour Menton (University of California at Irvine) for suggesting this study and sharing insights the gained when teaching Pepita Jiménez and Doña Perfecta sequentially.
2
«Novel and Society: Doña Perfecta», Anales Galdosianos, 11 (1976), 15.
3
For details see Gifford Davis, «The Spanish Debate over Idealism and Realism before the Impact of Zola's Naturalism», PMLA, 84 (1969), 1649-56.
4
The Revista de España listed Galdós as editor from January 1872 through October 1873.
5
H. Chonon Berkowitz says that Don Benito was satisfied with neither Valera's Pepita Jiménez nor Alarcón's El escándalo (Pérez Galdós: Spanish Liberal Crusader [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1948] pp. 133-34).
6
Pérez Galdós, Fortunata y Jacinta (Madrid: La Guirnalda, 1918), IV, 294.
7
The fictional time is April 1876 (pp. 278, 303), the same month in which Galdós had finished Doña Perfecta.
8
Berkowitz, p. 134.
9
Berkowitz, p. 133.
10
Madrid, ed. José Pérez Vidal (Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, 1957), pp. 224-27, 236-37.