THROUGHOUT 1970, the fiftieth anniversary of the dea o Benito Pdrez Gald6s (1843-1920), the international world of literature is honoring the Spanish master's artistic achievement.' Hispania is pleased to join such well-known journals as Symposium2 and Cuadernos hispanoamericanos3 in dedicating an entire issue to Gald6s' memory.* The fact that this is the first issue of Hispania ever dedicated completely to one author is indicative of the importance and high esteem which Gald6s enjoys both in the field of Hispanic belleslettres and among the members of our own American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. Gald6s, of course, would be the first to protest that he does not merit the honor we are paying him. Always a very shy and sincerely self-effacing individual, Gald6s did, nevertheless, acquire national and international fame within his own lifetime; and now, fifty years after his death, he is generally considered the most important Spanish author of the nineteenth century and the greatest Spanish novelist since Cervantes. Creator of more than 8,000 fictional characters in seventy-seven novels, twenty-six plays, many short stories and several costumbrista sketches, Gald6s achieved importance and esteem comparable to those of his nineteenth-century European contemporaries, Dickens, Balzac, Zola, Tolstoy, and Dostoievsky. At the time of his death in 1920, Gald6s was so well-known and beloved by his fellow Spaniards that an estimated 30,000 people paid their respects as his body lay in state in the City Hall in Madrid and an even greater number honored him by marching in his funeral procession.