SOURCE: DeCoster, Cyrus. “Short Stories” and “Cuadros de Costambres.” In Pedro Antonio de Alarcón pp. 32-58. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979.

In the excerpt below, DeCoster provides a thematic and stylistic analysis of Alarcón's short fiction and sketches.

Between 1852 and 1854 Alarcón wrote short pieces of all sorts for El Eco de Occidente, mostly stories, costumbrista sketches, and poems. I was unable to locate the issues of El Eco de Occidente published in Cádiz in 1852-53.¹ The first versions of the stories “El amigo de la muerte,” “La buenaventura,” “El clavo,” and “La cruz de palo” appeared in it; what else, one cannot say. The issues published in Granada in 1854 were collected in a volume and are readily available.² Alarcón left Granada in July of that year, and after a month's hiatus, Salvador de Salvador took over the editorship of the journal, although Alarcón continued...