. These books are a great advance upon the two earlier novels;
from the first they showed literary workmanship of a high order: they
possess ingenuity of plot, sufficient probability, and graphic power
of description, movement, and conversation. In the latter respects,
indeed, they surpass some of the author's later works that make more
serious pretensions.

The wider and more definitely literary reputation of Perez Galdos
rests upon more than a score of other works, in addition to the above.
These are distinctly novels, as contrasted with romances; and they
treat of contemporary life, in a method that aims to be
conscientiously observant and impartial. It is often said, without
much reflection, that we see enough of the things close about us, and
need our literary recreation in the remote and strange. But it must be
recalled that we see those things without the eyes of genius, and he
is a true benefactor who poetizes and dignifies life in making evident
that all of life is vivid with interest, even that part of it nearest
to us, which without such illumination we may have thought devoid of
it. The words in which the ostensible narrator of 'Lo Prohibido'
(Forbidden Fruit: 1885), explains the purpose of his journal may well
enough be taken to exhibit the method of Galdos. It was to set down
"my prosaic adventures, events that in no way differ from those that
fill and make up the lives of other men. I aspire to no further
effects than such as the sincere and unaffected presentation of the
truth may produce; and I have no design upon the reader's emotions by
means of calculated surprises, frights, or conjurer's tricks, through
which things look one way for a time and then turn out in a manner
diametrically opposite."

The titles of a number of his principal books, not hitherto given,
with dates, are as follows. The dates are those when they were
written, and they were generally published shortly after: 'Dona
Perfecta,' 1876; 'Gloria,' 1876; 'Torquemada en la Hoguera'
(Torquemada at the Stake: 1876); 'Marianela,' 1878; 'La Familia de
Leon Roch' (Leon Roch's Family: 1878); 'Los Cien Mil Hijos de San
Luis' (The Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis: 1877) of the
Episodios; 'Un Faccioso Mas' (A Rebel the More: 1879) the completion
of the Episodios; 'La Desheredada' (The Disowned: 1881); 'El Amigo
Manso' (Friend Mildman: 1882); 'El Doctor Centeno,' 1883; 'Tormento,'
1884; 'La de Bringas' (That Mrs. de Bringas: 1884); 'Fortunat