Valera: Commander Mendoza
Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days
Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500
Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days
Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500
Juan Valera y Alcala-Galiano (1824-1905), one of nineteenth-century Spain's most respected authors, lived an international life-a career in the diplomatic service, with postings to more than a half dozen countries in Europe and the Americas. Cosmopolitan, cultured, and urbane, Valera was fluent in a number of languages and read widely in all of them. A serious student of his own and foreign literatures, he wrote novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and literary criticism, in addition to carrying on a voluminous correspondence with several of his fellow Spanish writers and friends. The unifying thread of his work is "art for art's sake," that is, beauty as the end and purpose of inspiration and creativity, a stance he commented on at some length in his introduction to the 1886 Appleton English translation of his first novel, Pepita Jimenez (1874), the tale of a young seminarian who falls in love with a young widow.
Commander Mendoza (1877) tells the story of Don Fadrique Lopez de Mendoza, a man of seafaring adventures and a deist in the mold of the eighteenth-century philosophes, and Dona Blanca Roldan de Solis, a woman of unbounded pride and a Catholic driven by religious fanaticism, neither of which traits prevented her from having had an adulterous affair as a young woman in Lima, Peru, with Don Fadrique. The conflict that plays out in Commander Mendoza, with both principals now back in Spain, centers on the Commander's discovery of the marriageable daughter that he did not know he had, and it turns into a contest of wills that effects changes in both of them as the fate of their daughter hangs in the balance. Rich in characterization and exploration of human foibles, it is a work that continued to stand high on the list of Valera's favorites, for in 1885 he wrote in a letter to a friend: "What would please me would be to continue writing novels like Pepita Jimenez and Commander Mendoza."
Robert Fedorchek is a professor emeritus of modern languages and
literatures at Fairfield University (Connecticut). He has
published fifteen books of translations of nineteenth-century
Spanish literature, including three other novels by Juan Valera.
He has also translated numerous fairy tales by Valera, Antonio de
Trueba, Cecilia Bohl de Faber, and Concha Castroviejo for Marvels
& Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies.
Susan McKenna is an assistant professor of Spanish at the University of Delawa
where she specializes in nineteenth-century Spanish literature.
She is the author of Crafting the Female Subject: Narrative
Innovation in the Short Fiction of Emilia Pardo Bazan.
• Author(s): Clear | James • Publisher: Penguin • Publisher Imprint: Penguin Random House • Subject: General Books
• Author(s): Ichiro Kishimi • Publisher: GROVE ATLANTIC • Publisher Imprint: Allen & Unwin • BISAC: Personal Growth - SuccessIchiro Kishimi lives in Kyoto. He writes, lectures and teaches in psychiatric clinics as a certified counsellor and c...
View full details• Author(s): Chetan Bhagat • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India • Publisher Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers India • BISAC: GeneralFrom India's top-selling writer Chetan Bhagat comes a powerful new love story that will make you laugh, cry...
View full details• Author(s): Brianna Wiest • Publisher: Manjul Publishing • Publisher Imprint: Amaryllis • BISAC: Body Mind And SpiritThis is a book about self-sabotage. Why we do it, when we do it, and how to stop doing it—for good. Coexisting but conflicting n...
View full details• Author(s): Morgan Housel • Publisher: Pan Macmillan • Publisher Imprint: Pan Macmillan • BISAC: Finance - Wealth ManagementA third book from the International bestselling author of The Psychology of Money and Same as Ever, lessons on harnessing...
View full details• Author(s): Arundhati Roy• Publisher: PRH INDIA LOCAL PRINT• Publisher Imprint: Penguin Hamish Hamilton• BISAC: Literary FiguresArundhati Roy’s first work of memoir, this is a soaring account, both intimate and inspiring, of how the author became...
View full details• Author(s): Acharya Prashant • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India • Publisher Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers India • BISAC: GeneralIn a world where vagueness is mistaken for depth and obscurity passes for wisdom, Truth without Apology ...
View full details• Author(s): Sudha Murthy • Publisher: India Puffin • Publisher Imprint: India Puffin • BISAC: Short StoriesWho can resist a good story, especially when it's being told by Grandma? From her bag emerges tales of kings and cheats, monkeys and mic...
View full details• Author(s): Satoshi Yagisawa • Publisher: Bonnier Books Ltd • Publisher Imprint: Bonnier Books Ltd
• Author(s): Newport, Cal • Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group • Publisher Imprint: Piatkus
• Author(s): Shrijeet Shandilya • Publisher: Ebury Press • Publisher Imprint: Ebury Press • BISAC: Romance - GeneralIn the electric haze of college life, three friends are bound by laughter, late-night talks and unspoken promises. But when two of...
View full details• Author(s): Dan Brown • Publisher: Transworld Publishers Ltd • Publisher Imprint: Transworld Publishers Ltd • BISAC: Thrillers - EspionageDan Brown is the bestselling author of Digital Fortress, Deception Point, Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci C...
View full details• Author(s): Sudha Murty • Publisher: India Puffin • Publisher Imprint: India Puffin • BISAC: Action & Adventure - General
Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
• Publisher: Penguin • Publisher Imprint: Penguin Random House • Subject: General Books • BISAC: Personal Finance - GeneralApril of 2022 marks a 25-year milestone for the personal finance classic Rich Dad Poor Dad that still ranks as the #1 Pers...
View full details• Author(s): Dale Carnegie | Napoleon Hill • Publisher: Fingerprint • Publisher Imprint: Fingerprint • Subject: General Books
• Author(s): Freida Mcfadden • Publisher: Penguin Select Print • Publisher Imprint: Penguin Select Publishing"Multi-Million Copy Bestselling Series •Now Being Made Into a Major Motion Picture Starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried #1 New Yor...
View full details• Author(s): Wonder House Books • Publisher: Wonder House Books • Publisher Imprint: Wonder House Books • BISAC: Comics & Graphic Novels - Fairy Tales, Folklore, Legends & MTimeless Wisdom, Talking Animals & Life Lessons for Young Min...
View full details• Author(s): Viktor E. Frankl • Publisher: Random House • Publisher Imprint: Random Hou • Subject: Medical, Nursing and Health Sciences
• Author(s): Madhavi Bharadwaj • Publisher: PRH India • Publisher Imprint: Penguin Ebury Press • BISAC: Parenting - MotherhoodWelcome to the wild, messy, wonderful world of parenting--where the nights are long, the diapers are explosive, and unso...
View full details• Author(s): Vir Das • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India • Publisher Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers India • BISAC: Entertainment & Performing ArtsComedian and actor Vir Das is beloved (by some, tolerated by others, blocked by a few...
View full details• Author(s): Eric Carle • Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK) • Publisher Imprint: Penguin Books, Limited (UK) • BISAC: Animals - Butterflies, Moths & CaterpillarsEric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a perennial favourite with child...
View full details• Author(s): Prajakta Koli • Publisher: Harper Fiction India • Publisher Imprint: Harper Fiction India • BISAC: Romance - ContemporaryWinner of the Amazon India Popular Choice Debut Book 2025 Award. From one of India's most-loved creators comes s...
View full details• Author(s): Albom, Mitch • Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group • Publisher Imprint: Sphere* Subtitled 'An old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson', this is a true story of a man's rediscovery of his mentor - a book about second chances.