SOURCE: Harter, Hugh. “The Novels.” In Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, pp. 119-42. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1981.

In the following excerpt, Harter offers an examination of the characteristics, character types, and themes found in Avellaneda's novels.

Although Spain, with Don Quixote and the development of the picaresque genre, has good reason to its claim as the “mother” of the novel, the rich vein of novelistic creativity had run dry long before the advent of romanticism to Iberia. By the 1830s and the advent of the romantic period, the works of Sir Walter Scott were widely read, often in poor translations, and there were numerous adaptations and versions of novels taken from the French. Spanish romantic writers devoted their energies primarily to poetry and to the drama, leaving a very slender list of novels. The two best known are Mariano José de Larra's El doncel de don Enrique el doliente...