Juan Valera en los relatos de viajes y en la crítica literaria en lengua inglesa a finales del siglo XIX y primeros años del XX

Abstract

In this article I analyse the relatively scanty attention that Juan Valera's literary works were granted in travel books, reviews, translations, and books of literary criticism in English-speaking countries during his lifetime, in spite of their irrefutable literary worth. Valera himself attributed his lack of readership both at home and abroad to the fact that he did not follow a literary fashion to which he could be easily ascribed. However, though meagre, the limited number of allusions and analyses of Valera's novels in English travel books and books of literary criticism is attributed mainly to the fact that his death in 1905 accidentally coincided with an increase of visitors from Britain to accompany Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg for her marriage to King Alfonso XIII (31 May 1906), the subsequent improvement of the relations between Spain and Britain at the time, and the rise of Hispanic studies in England. Yet we find some exceptions to this generalized ignoring of Valera. Such is the case of the traveller E.C. Hope-Edwardes (1883).