Introduction

Summary

I began collecting for this second, supplementary volume to my 1986 Leopoldo Alas (Clarín): An Annotated Bibliography well before the first installment appeared in libraries. In 2000, as I write this, the hillock of Clariniana has become a small mountain. Secondary materials continue to pile up; and, since the author’s rights expired in 1981, editions of Alas’s novels, stories and criticism proliferate. This second volume fills a significant gap in bibliographical resource materials, but clearly a third volume is inevitable. (This task, I trust, will fall to another Clarín scholar.)

Two conclusions can be drawn from a perusal of this bibliography. First, the canonization of Leopoldo Alas as a modern classic writer is complete. Clarín’s reputation, which suffered neglect or silent reproval during much of the twentieth century, is at an all-time high. His novels and stories are part of the curriculum in Spain, and are regularly taught in colleges and universities abroad. Editions, both popular and scholarly, are readily available. Clarín’s name alone has a recognition value beyond university circles in Spain. His likeness appeared on a 200-peseta banknote in 1984, as well as on a 30-peseta postage stamp. A hotel, a café, a movie theatre, a street (and probably more) bear his name in Oviedo. A new literary journal, also from Oviedo, called Clarín (Revista de Nueva Literatura) and edited by José Luis García Martín, announced its first issue in 1996. (Appropriately, one of the sections is called ‘Paliques’.) It is possible to spend, lick, sleep, drink, or peruse Clarín, if one is so inclined. I remember, in 1978, searching over an hour for Alas’s gravesite, when I finally ran into a tiny, bent over old woman cleaning headstones. Could she tell me where I might find the tomb of Don Leopoldo Alas, better known as Clarín? ‘I don’t know the señor myself’, she answered gravely in Asturian bable, ‘but perhaps he lies over there’, waving vaguely toward a mass of crosses, turrets and obelisks. Twenty years later, no one has trouble locating Clarín’s place in the culture and literature of Spain.

Also clearly seen in this bibliography and related to Alas’s now classic status within Spain are indications of his growing international reputation.