SOURCE: Tolliver, Joyce. Introduction to Torn Lace and Other Stories, by Emilia Pardo Bazán, Translated by María Christina Urruela, pp. ix-xxiv. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1996.

In the following essay, Tolliver provides a biographical sketch of Pardo Bazán and a thematic and stylistic analysis of her short stories.

Pardo Bazán, Writer and Intellectual

Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851-1921) is one of the most important literary figures of nineteenth-century Spain. She is without doubt the most influential Spanish woman writer of that century, instrumental in promoting an awareness of French naturalism and Russian spiritual realism in the Spanish reading public. Pardo Bazán single-handedly authored and published an important journal, Nuevo teatro crítico, which appeared every month in 1891 and 1892. It served as a forum for her feminist ideas and included essays on philosophical, scientific, literary, and historical topics. Pardo Bazán...