Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan

Valera y Alcalá Galiano, Juan (hwän välā`rä ē älkälä` gälyä`nō), 1824–1905, Spanish writer and diplomat. Of a leading liberal family, Valera was a diplomat until 1858, and he later became a senator and an ambassador. Among his major works are Cartas americanas (4 vol., 1889), on Spanish-American writers, and Florilegio de poesías castellanas del siglo XIX (5 vol., 1902–3), an anthology of Spanish poetry. His first novel, Pepita Jiménez (1874, tr. 1886), won international fame. Other novels include El comendador Mendoza (1877, tr. Commander Mendoza, 1893) and Juanita la Larga (1895).