SOURCE: Miller, Stephen. Introduction to The Nun and Other Stories, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, translated by Robert M. Fedorchek, pp. 12-26. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1999.

In the following essay, Miller chronicles the critical reaction to Alarcón's short fiction, concluding that “it is time to read Pedro Antonio de Alarcón anew, and Robert M. Fedorchek's translations here and in ‘The Nail’ and Other Stories are fine places to begin.”

Together with Pérez Galdós, Alas, Pardo Bazán, Palacio Valdés, Pereda, Valera, and Fernán Caballero, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón figures among the major authors of Spanish nineteenth-century narrative. Nonetheless, as viewed by critics contemporary to him and to us, those of his works which are praised—for example “El clavo” [“The Nail”], “La Comendadora” [“The Nun”], El sombrero de tres picos [The Three-Cornered Hat], and El Capitán Veneno [Captain...