Galdós's "Torquemada" Novels: Waste and Profit in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain
Benito Pérez Galdós has long been considered the Spanish Tolstoy; however, unlike those of his Russian counterpart, few of his works are available in English—and fewer still are the subjects of serious literary scholarship. This book approaches one of the author’s most memorable characters, Madrid moneylender Francisco Torquemada, and considers the extent to which notions of profit, efficiency, and utility inform the Torquemada series—juxtaposing nineteenth-century understandings of waste and profit with contemporary economic ideas in order to better comprehend the writer and his world.
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Galdós's "Torquemada" Novels: Waste and Profit in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain
Benito Pérez Galdós has long been considered the Spanish Tolstoy; however, unlike those of his Russian counterpart, few of his works are available in English—and fewer still are the subjects of serious literary scholarship. This book approaches one of the author’s most memorable characters, Madrid moneylender Francisco Torquemada, and considers the extent to which notions of profit, efficiency, and utility inform the Torquemada series—juxtaposing nineteenth-century understandings of waste and profit with contemporary economic ideas in order to better comprehend the writer and his world.
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Galdós's

Galdós's "Torquemada" Novels: Waste and Profit in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain

by Teresa Fuentes Peris
Galdós's

Galdós's "Torquemada" Novels: Waste and Profit in Late Nineteenth-Century Spain

by Teresa Fuentes Peris

Hardcover

$19.00 
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Overview

Benito Pérez Galdós has long been considered the Spanish Tolstoy; however, unlike those of his Russian counterpart, few of his works are available in English—and fewer still are the subjects of serious literary scholarship. This book approaches one of the author’s most memorable characters, Madrid moneylender Francisco Torquemada, and considers the extent to which notions of profit, efficiency, and utility inform the Torquemada series—juxtaposing nineteenth-century understandings of waste and profit with contemporary economic ideas in order to better comprehend the writer and his world.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780708320594
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Publication date: 12/15/2007
Series: Iberian and Latin American Studies
Pages: 144
Product dimensions: 5.60(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Teresa Fuentes Peris is a lecturer in Spanish at Leeds Metropolitan University. Her previous volume Visions of Filth: Deviancy and Social Control in the Novels of Galdós was published by Liverpool University Press in 2003.

Table of Contents

Series Editors' Foreword     ix
Preface     xi
Introduction: No Room for Waste: the Torquemada Novels in the Context of their Age     1
Gain and Loss: Torquemada and the Utilitarian Ethos     17
Torquemada: the Self-Made Man     18
The Cost of Squandered Wealth and Idle Capital     29
Wasted Lives: Torquemada's Utilitarian Approach to Death     38
Disease, Degeneration and Death: the Squandering of National Resources     53
Safeguarding Human Capital: the Hygienic Discourse on the Value of Life     55
Valentin II: a Wasted and Wasteful Life     60
A Family of Degenerates?     68
Making a Personal Profit: the Trade of Philanthropy in Torquemada y San Pedro     99
Gamborena: from Missionary to Philanthropist     101
Wasteful Charity? Ensuring a Fair Deal with Gamborena     111
On Torquemada's Death-bed: the Philanthropist's Struggle for Control     121
Conclusion     137
Bibliography     145
Index     153
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