by Leopoldo Alas (“Clarín”)

Leopoldo Alas, better known by the pseudonym “Clarín,” which he adopted in 1875, was born in Zamora, Spain, on April 25, 1852, but his ancestry and cultural preference tie him to the province of Asturias on the northern coast. From 1863 he lived in its capital city of Oviedo, leaving to spend summers at a small farm he inherited in the rural village of Guimarán (also the surname of a major character in La Regenta, or The Judge’s Wife). Alas completed his undergraduate law degree at the University of Oviedo in 1871, then earned a Doctorate in Jurisprudence from the University of Madrid and became a professor in Roman Law at his hometown University of Oviedo in 1882. The position made it possible for him to marry and to begin writing his most important...