Benito Pérez Galdós

Benito Pérez Galdós was born at the family home, located in Calle Cano in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (currently known as the Casa-Museo, or House-Museum Pérez Galdós) on 10 May 1843. He was the tenth and last son of the Lieutenant Colonel Don Sebastián Pérez and Doña Dolores Galdós. Two days after his birth, he was baptized Benito María de los Dolores at the church of San Francisco de Asís (es) in the same city.

He studied at the San Agustín school, where he was taught by teachers trained in the principles of the Enlightenment. This awakened in the young Benito a critical spirit, his love for history and his passion for the visual arts and literature. In 1862, after having completed his secondary studies, he travelled to Tenerife to obtain his certificate in Bachillerato in Arts. That same year he moved to Madrid to start his law degree, but he did not complete his studies.

While studying at university, he frequented the Ateneo of Madrid and other gatherings of intellectuals and artists. Through them and his walks around the city, he became acquainted with the life in Madrid and witnessed the political and historical events of the time. These experiences were reflected in his journalistic works and in his first novels, The Golden Fountain Café (La Fontana de oro) (1870) and El audaz (1871).

Benito Pérez Galdós led a comfortable life, living first with two of his sisters and then at the home of his nephew, José Hurtado de Mendoza.

In the city, he got up at sunrise and wrote regularly until ten o'clock in the morning, in pencil, because he considered the use of a pen a waste of time. He would then go for walks in Madrid to eavesdrop on other people's conversations (hence the enormous freshness and variety of his dialogues) and to observe details for his novels. He did not drink, but he smoked leaf cigars incessantly. In the early afternoon he read in Spanish, English or French; he preferred the English, Castilian and Greek classics, particularly Shakespeare, Dickens, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Euripides, whom he knew inside out. In his later years, he began to read Leo Tolstoy. Afterwards he would return to his walks, unless there was a concert, for he adored music and was a music critic for a long time. He went to bed early and almost never went to the theater.

From Ramón Pérez de Ayala's point of view, Pérez Galdós was careless in his dress, using somber tones to go unnoticed. In winter it was common to see him wearing a white woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, with one end hanging from his chest and the other behind his back, a half-smoked cigar in his hand and, when seated, his German shepherd dog beside him completed the topical picture. He was in the habit of wearing his hair cropped "al rape" and, apparently, suffered from severe migraines.

By 1865, he was publishing articles in La Nación on literature, art, music, and politics and it was clear that he was not going to pursue a legal career. His first attempt at a literary career came in 1867, when a didactic historical verse drama was rejected.[5] His next venture into the theatre did not take place until 1892.

He had already become enthusiastic about the novels of Charles Dickens and, in 1868, his translation of Pickwick Papers introduced his work to the Spanish public. The previous year, he had visited Paris and had begun to read the works of Balzac. In 1870, he was appointed editor of La Revista de España and began to express his opinions on a wide range of diverse topics such as history, culture, politics, art, music and literature. Between 1867 and 1868, he wrote what would be his first novel, La Fontana de Oro, a historical work set in the period 1820–1823. With the help of money from his sister-in-law, it was published privately in 1870. Critical reaction was slow to gain momentum but it was eventually hailed as the beginning of a new phase in Spanish fiction, and was highly praised for its literary quality as well as for its social and moral purpose.[5]

Pérez Galdós, circa 1863.

He next developed the outline of a major project, the Episodios Nacionales: a series of historical novels outlining the major events in Spanish history from the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 to his own times. To understand the importance of these novels, the great Max Aub said:

"If all the historical material of those years (19th century) were lost, saving the work of Galdós, it would not matter. There is complete, alive, real life of the nation during the hundred years that covered the author's claw. There are, forever, its hundreds and hundreds of historical and imagined characters, as true one as the other (...) Only the greatest in the world, and there are enough fingers to count them, achieved as much. And even more: I would leave him in the novel glory of his time hand in hand with Tolstoy, because, besides giving life to beings forever present, they knew how to bring to light the genius of their homeland through its struggles, glories and misfortunes (...) Galdós has done more for the knowledge of Spain by the Spaniards -by the Spanish people- than all the historians together".

The first episode was called Trafalgar and appeared in 1873. Successive episodes appeared in fits and starts until the forty-sixth and final novel, Cánovas, appeared in 1912. Every so often, Pérez Galdós seemed to grow tired of this project and stated that he would not write another episode. However, the public bought them avidly, despite the criticism that was levelled at his other works, and they remained the basis of his contemporary reputation and income. He conducted an enormous amount of research in the writing of these stories because official reports, newspaper accounts and histories were often rigidly partisan. To achieve balance and a wider perspective, Pérez Galdós sought out survivors and eyewitnesses to the actual events – such as an old man who had been a cabin boy aboard the ship Santísima Trinidad at Trafalgar, who became the central figure of that book. Pérez Galdós is often critical of the official versions of the events he describes and often ran into problems with the Catholic Church, then a dominant force in Spanish cultural life.

Literary critic José Montesinos classified Galdos's other novels into the following groups:[6]

1. The early works from La Fontana de Oro up to La familia de León Roch (1878). The best known of these is probably Doña Perfecta (1876), which describes the impact made by the arrival of a young radical on a stiflingly clerical town. In Marianela (1878) a young man regains his eyesight after a life of blindness and rejects his best friend Marianela for her ugliness.
2. The Novelas españolas contemporáneas, from La desheredada (1881) to Angel Guerra (1891), a loosely related series of 22 novels which are the author’s major claim to literary distinction, including his masterpiece Fortunata y Jacinta (1886–87). They are bound together by the device of recurring characters, borrowed from Balzac’s La Comédie humaine. Fortunata y Jacinta is almost as long as War and Peace. It concerns the fortunes of four characters: a young man-about-town, his wife, his lower-class mistress, and her husband. The character of Fortunata is based on a real girl whom Pérez Galdós first saw in a tenement building in Madrid, drinking a raw egg – which is the way in which the fictional characters come to meet.
3. The later novels of psychological investigation, many of which are in dialogue form.

Pérez Galdós was an enthusiastic traveller. His novels display a detailed knowledge of not only Madrid but many other cities, towns and villages of Spain – such as Toledo in Angel Guerra. He visited Great Britain on many occasions, his first trip being in 1883. The descriptions of the various districts and low-life characters that he encountered in Madrid, particularly in Fortunata y Jacinta, are similar to the approaches of Dickens and the French Realist novelists such as Balzac. Pérez Galdós also shows a Balzacian interest in technology and crafts, for example the lengthy descriptions of the ropery in La desheredada or the detailed accounts of how the heroine of La de Bringas (1884) embroiders her pictures out of hair.

Portrait of Benito Pérez Galdós, by Joaquín Sorolla, 1894.

He was also inspired by Émile Zola and Naturalism in which, under the influence of the deterministic philosophy of Hippolyte Taine, writers strove to show how their characters were forged by the interaction of heredity, environment and social conditions – race, milieu, et moment. In addition, these writers were keen to suggest that their works were scientific dissections of society. This set of influences is, perhaps, at its clearest in Lo prohibido (1884–85),[7] which is also noteworthy for being told in the first person by an unreliable narrator who, in addition, dies during the course of the work – it pre-dates similar experiments by André Gide such as L'immoraliste.

Another influence came from the philosophy of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, which became influential in Spain mainly due to the influence of the famous educationalist Francisco Giner de los Ríos. The clearest example of this influence on Galdós is in his novel El Amigo Manso (1882). However, it is also clear that the mystical tendencies of krausismo led to his interest in insanity and the strange wisdom that can sometimes be shown by those people who appear to be mad. This becomes a theme of great importance in the works of Pérez Galdós from Fortunata y Jacinta onwards, for example in Miau (1888) and his final novel La razón de la sinrazón.

All through his literary career, Pérez Galdós incurred the wrath of the Catholic press. He attacked what he saw as abuses of entrenched and dogmatic religious power rather than religious faith or Christianity per se. In fact, the need for faith is a very important feature in many of his novels and there are many sympathetic portraits of priests and nuns.[5]

Portrayed in his studio, by Franzen, 1901

His first mature play was Realidad, an adaptation of his novel of the same name, which had been written in dialogue. Pérez Galdós was attracted to the idea of making direct contact with his public and seeing and hearing their reactions. Rehearsals began in February 1892. The theatre was packed on the opening night and received the play enthusiastically. Pérez Galdós took about 15 curtain calls. However, although the audience reception was good, the play did not receive universal critical acclaim because of its realistic dialogue which did not accord with the general theatrical language of the time, the setting of a scene in the boudoir of a courtesan, and the un-Spanish attitude towards a wife’s adultery. The Catholic press did not attend the performance but this did not prevent them from denouncing the author as a perverse and wicked influence. The play ran for twenty nights.[5]

In 1901, his play Electra caused a storm of outrage and floods of equally hyperbolic enthusiasm. As in many of his works, Pérez Galdós targeted clericalism and the inhuman fanaticism and superstition that can accompany it. The performance was interrupted by audience reaction and the author had to take many curtain calls. After the third night, the conservative and clerical parties organised a demonstration outside the theatre. The police moved in and arrested two members of a workers’ organization who had reacted against the demonstration. Several people were wounded as a result of the clash and, the next day, the newspapers were divided between liberal support for the play and Catholic/conservative condemnation. Over one hundred performances were given in Madrid alone and the play was also performed in the provinces. In 1934, 33 years later, a revival in Madrid produced much the same degree of uproar and outrage.[5]

Despite his attacks on the forces of conservatism, Pérez Galdós had shown only a weak interest in being directly involved in politics. In 1886 the Prime Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta appointed him as the (absent) deputy for the town and district of Guayama, Puerto Rico at the Madrid parliament; he never visited the place, but had a representative inform him of the status of the area and felt a duty to represent its inhabitants appropriately. This appointment lasted for five years and mainly seems to have given him the chance to observe the conduct of politics at first hand, which informs scenes in some of his novels.

As part of the republican political forces, Madrid elected Pérez Galdós as a representative in the Cortes of 1907. In 1909, together with Pablo Iglesias, he presided the Republican–Socialist Conjunction, although Pérez Galdós, who "did not feel himself a politician", soon withdrew from the struggles "for the minutes and the farce" and turned his already diminished energies to the novel and the theater.

At the same time, the skillful political instinct of the Count of Romanones, plotted meetings between the young King Alfonso XIII and the popular writer that placed him in an ambiguous context. However, in 1914, Pérez Galdós, ill and blind, presented and won his candidacy as republican deputy for Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. This coincided with the promotion, in March 1914, of a National Board tribute to Pérez Galdós, made up of personalities as Eduardo Dato (head of the Government), the banker Gustavo Bauer (Rothschild's representative in Spain), Melquiades Álvarez, head of the reformists, or the Duke of Alba, as well as established writers such as Jacinto Benavente, Mariano de Cavia and José de Echegaray. Politicians such as Antonio Maura or Lerroux were not included in the board, neither were, for antagonistic reasons, the Church and the socialists.[4] He had been blind since 1912, was in financial difficulties and increasingly troubled by illness.[5]

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for five years, 1912–16, which would both have increased his prestige outside Spain and improved his financial status, but neither was successful.[8] Among those who nominated Pérez Galdós was the 1904 winner José Echegaray.[9] So, the 1914 National Board was set up to raise money to help Pérez Galdós, to which the King and his Prime Minister Romanones were the first to subscribe. The activities of the Catholic press, which sneered at the writer as a blind beggar, along with the outbreak of World War I, led to the scheme being closed in 1916 with the money raised being less than half what would be required to clear his debts and set up a pension.[4] In that same year, however, the Ministry of Public Instruction appointed him to take charge of the arrangements for the Cervantes tercentenary, for a stipend of 1000 pesetas per month. Although the event never took place, the stipend continued for the rest of Pérez Galdós’s life.[5]

In 1918, he joined in a protest with Miguel de Unamuno and Mariano de Cavia against the encroaching censorship and authoritarianism coming from the putatively constitutional monarch.[10]

In the literary aspect, it can be noted that his admiration for the work of Leon Tolstoy is reflected in a certain spiritualism in his last writings and, in the same Russian line, he could not conceal a certain pessimism for the destiny of Spain, as can be perceived in the pages of one of his last National Episodes, Cánovas (1912), to which this paragraph belongs:

The two parties that have agreed to take turns peacefully in power are two herds of men who aspire only to graze on the budget. They lack ideals, no lofty goal moves them, they will not improve in the least the living conditions of this unhappy, very poor and illiterate race. They will pass one after the other, leaving everything as it is today, and they will lead Spain to a state of consumption that, for sure, will end in death. They will tackle neither the religious problem, nor the economic problem, nor the educational problem; they will do nothing but pure bureaucracy, caciquism, sterile work of recommendations, favors to cronies, legislating without any practical efficacy, and on with the little lanterns...

— Benito Pérez Galdós, Cánovas, Madrid, 1912

In 1897, Pérez Galdós had been elected to the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy). After becoming blind he continued to dictate his books for the rest of his life. Pérez Galdós died at the age of 76. Shortly before his death, a statue in his honour was unveiled in the Parque del Buen Retiro, the most popular park in Madrid, financed solely by public donations. And a ceremony was held in which Galdos participated. The writer, now blind, explored her face with his hands and after recognizing her, he began to cry and said to the sculptor, a great friend of his, "Magnificent, my friend Macho, and how she looks like me!

• Works related to Benito Pérez Galdós at Wikisource (in Spanish)
• The Pérez Galdós Editions Project at University of Sheffield
  • Torquemada en la hoguera ISBN 0-9542608-3-X (in Spanish)
• Works by Benito Pérez Galdós at Project Gutenberg (in Spanish)
• Works by or about Benito Pérez Galdós at Internet Archive (in Spanish)
• Works by Benito Pérez Galdós at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Benito Pérez Galdós - google books (in Spanish)
• Pérez Galdós House Museum (in Spanish)
  • Complete works (ePub) (in Spanish)
• Online library (works in English) Canary Islands government

His novels have yielded many cinematic adaptations: Beauty in Chains (Doña Perfecta) was directed by Elsie Jane Wilson in 1918; Viridiana (1961), by Luis Buñuel, is based upon Halma; Buñuel also adapted Nazarín (1959) and Tristana (1970); La Duda was filmed in 1972 by Rafael Gil; El Abuelo (1998) (The Grandfather), by José Luis Garci, was internationally released a year later; it previously had been adapted as the Argentine film, El Abuelo (1954). In 2018, Sri Lankan director, Bennett Rathnayke directed the film Nela.[15]

• Alfieri, J.J. (1968). "Galdós Revaluated (sic)" Books Abroad, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 225–226.
• Bishop, William Henry (1917). "Benito Pérez Galdós." In: The Warner Library. New York: Knickerbocker Press, pp. 6153–6163.
• Chamberlin, Vernon A. (1964). "Galdós' Use of Yellow in Character Delineation," PMLA, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 158–163.
• Ellis, Havelock (1906). "The Spirit of Present Day Spain," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 98, pp. 757–765.
• Geddes Jr., James (1910). "Introduction." In: Marianela. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., pp. iii–xvi.
• Glascock, C.C. (1923). "Spánish Novelist: Benito Perez Galdos," Texas Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 158–177.
• Gómez Martínez, José Luis (1983). "Galdós y el Krausismo español" Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 55–79.
• Huntington, Archer M. (1897). "Perez Galdós in the Spanish Academy," The Bookman, Vol. V, pp. 220–222.
• Karimi, Kian-Harald (2007): Jenseits von altem Gott und ‘Neuem Menschen’. Präsenz und Entzug des Göttlichen im Diskurs der spanischen Restaurationsepoche. Frankf./M.: Vervuert. ISBN 3-86527-313-0
• Keniston, Hayward (1920). "Galdós, Interpreter of Life," Hispania, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 203–206.
• Madariaga, Salvador de (1920). "The Genius of Spain," Contemporary Review, Vol. 117, pp. 508–516.
• Miller, W. (1901). "The Novels of Pérez Galdós," The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 291, pp. 217–228.
• Pattison, Walter T. (1954). Benito Pérez Galdós and the Creative Process. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
• Ridao Carlini, Inma (2018): Rich and Poor in Nineteenth-Century Spain: A Critique of Liberal Society in the Later Novels of Benito Pérez Galdós. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 978-1-85566-330-5
• Waldeck, R.W. (1904). "Benito Pérez Galdós, Novelist, Dramatist and Reformer" The Critic, Vol. 45, No. 5, pp. 447–449.
• Warshaw, J. (1929). "Galdós's Apprenticeship in the Drama," Modern Language Notes, Vol. 44, No. 7, pp. 459–463.

The Pérez Galdós' House-Museum (Casa-Museo Pérez Galdós in Spanish) is located in the Triana neighbourhood, in the centre of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The house (the place where Galdós was born) was acquired and created in 1954 by the Cabildo de Gran Canaria and inaugurated on 9 July 1960 by María Pérez Galdós Cobián, the writer's daughter.

In the House-Museum visitors can see the house where the writer grew up, as well as a display of documents (letters, manuscripts...), furniture, musical instruments, paintings and photos that belonged to both the writer and his family.

The aim of the House-Museum is the conservation, study and dissemination of the legacy of Benito Pérez Galdós. For this matter, the management of the House-Museum has organised eleven international congresses, countless conferences and exhibitions, school visits, and has developed a publishing line with several collections of its own.

The House-Museum also has its own library with numerous works by Galdós in different languages, as well as the author's complete collection in ePub format (only in Spanish) and a virtual tour, among others.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Pérez Galdós, Benito".

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Benito Pérez Galdós.

• Benito Pérez Galdós at IMDb
• Benito Pérez Galdós at Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library (in Spanish)
• Pérez Galdós House Museum (in Spanish)
  • Brochure (in English)
  • Map (in English)
  • Guide (in English)
  • Tour (in Spanish)
• Benito Pérez Galdós - (agosto 2011 — febrero 2013) fan site
• Benito Pérez Galdós Published in The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature (2004)
• Benito Pérez Galdós Study Guide enotes