Palacio Valdés, Armando

Palacio Valdés, Armando (ärmän`dō pälä`thyō väldās`), 1853–1938, Spanish novelist and critic. He began his career with critical writings, but his reputation rests on his realistic novels, characterized by an optimistic view of life. La aldea perdida [the lost village] (1911) and La hermana San Sulpicio (1889, tr. The Joy of Captain Ribot, 1900) are considered the best of these. A collection of his short stories appeared in English translation in 1935.

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Palacio Valdés, Armando 

Born Oct. 4, 1853, in Entralgo, Asturias; died Feb. 3, 1938, in Madrid. Spanish author and critic. Member of the Spanish Academy from 1906.

Palacio Valdés was the author of articles on Spanish literature, many of which were published in the collections Literary Portraits(1878) and Literature in 1881 (1882, together with L. Alas y Ureña). In prose, he continued the traditions of costumbrismo. He criticized religious asceticism in his novels Sister Saint Sulpice (1889; Russian translation, 1913) and The Marquis of Peñalta (1883). In the novels The Idyll of an Invalid (1884) and José (1885; Russian translation, 1906), he portrayed the life of the lower classes, with its coarseness and cruelty. In such novels as Riverita (1886) and The Froth (1890; Russian translation, 1907), he presented a critical picture of the world of the bourgeoisie and the gentry. His novel The Lost Village (1903) bemoans the vanishing patriarchal rural way of life.

WORKS

Obras completas, vols. 1-3. Madrid, 1925-27.
Obras escogidas, 3rd ed. Madrid, 1942.

REFERENCES

Shepelevich, L. “Armando Paliasio Val’des.” In his book Istorikoliteraturnye etiudy, series II. St. Petersburg, 1905.
Dioneo [Shklovskii, I. V.]. “A. Palasio Val’des.” Russkoe bogatstvo, 1911, nos. 8-9.
Cruz Rueda, A. Armando Palacio Valdés: Estudio biográfico, 2nd ed. Madrid, 1940.
Roca Franquesa, J. M. Palacio Valdés. Oviedo, 1951.

A. L. SHTEIN