PEDRO

ANTONIO DE

See also:

• ALARCON, HERNANDO DE
• ALARCON, JUAN RUIZ DE (1518 ?-1639)
• PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCON (1833-1891)

ALARCON (1833-1891)  , Spanish writer, was born on the loth of March 1833 at Guadix . He graduated at the university of Granada, studied law and theology privately, and made his first appearance as a dramatist before he was of age . Deciding to follow literature as a profession, he joined with Torcuato Thrrago y Mateos in editing a Cadiz news-paper entitled El Eco de Occidente . In 1853 he travelled to Madrid in the hope of finding a publisher for his continuation of Espronceda's celebrated poem, El Diablo Mundo . Disappointed in his object, and finding no opening at the capital, he settled at Granada, became a radical journalist in that city, and showed so much ability that in 1854 he was appointed editor of a republican journal, El Ldtigo, published at Madrid . The extreme violence of his polemics led to a duel between him and the Byronic poet, Jose Heriberto Garcia Quevedo . The earliest of his novels, El Final de Norma, was published in 1855, and though its construction is feeble it brought the writer into notice as a master of elegant prose . A small anthology, called Mananas de Abril y Mayo (1856), proves that Alarcon was re-cognized as a leader by young men of promise, for among the contributors were Castelar, Manuel del Palacio and Lopez de Ayala . A dramatic piece, El Hijo prodigo, was hissed off the stage in 1857, and the failure so stung Alarcon that he enlisted under O'Donnell's command as a volunteer for the war in Morocco . His Diario de un testigo de la guerra de Africa (1859) is a brilliant account of the expedition . The first edition, amounting to fifty thousand copies, was sold within a fortnight, and Alarcon's name became famous throughout the peninsula . The book is not in any sense a formal history; it is a series of picturesque impressions rendered with remarkable force .

On his return from Africa Alarcon did the Liberal party much

good service as editor of La Politica, but after his marriage in 1866 to a devout lady, Paulina Contrera y Reyes, he modified his political views considerably . On the overthrow of the monarchy in 1868, Alarcon advocated the claims of the duc de Montpensier, was neutral during the period of the republic, and declared himself a Conservative upon the restoration of the dynasty in December 1874 . These political variations alienated Alarcbn's old allies and failed to conciliate the royalists . But though his political influence was ruined, his success as a writer was greater than ever . The publication in the Revista Europea (1874) of a short story, El Sombrero de tres picos, a most ingenious resetting of an old popular tale, made him almost as well known out of Spain as in it . This remarkable triumph in the picturesque vein encouraged him to produce other works of the same kind; yet though his Cuentos amatorios (1881), his Historietas nacionales (1881) and his Narraciones inverosimiles (1882) are pleasing, they have not the delightful gaiety and charm of. their predecessor . In a longer novel, El Escdndalo (1875), Alarcon had appeared as a partisan of the neo-Catholic reaction, and this change of opinion brought upon him many attacks, mostly unjust . His usual bad fortune followed him, for while the Radicals denounced him as an apostate, the neo-Catholics alleged that El Esc4ndalo was tainted with Jansenism . Of his later volumes, written in failing health and spirits, it is only necessary to mention El Capitan Veneno and the Historia de mis libros, both issued in 1881 . Alarcon was elected a member of the Spanish Academy in 1875 . He died at Madrid on the 2oth of July 1891 . His later novels and tales are disfigured by their didactic tendency, by feeble drawing of character, and even by certain gallicisms of style .

But, at his best, Alarcon may be read with

great pleasure . The Diario de un testigo is still unsurpassed as a picture of campaigning life, while El Sombrero de tres picos is a very perfect example of malicious wit and minute observation . (J .