I love being swept away by a newly discovered old author. Emilia Pardo Bazán, born September 16, 1851, was a pioneering Spanish feminist, but also (it turns out) an author of textured naturalistic prose like Zola’s and Flaubert’s, if more inspired by concern for the downtrodden.

I can only find three of her 20 (!) novels in English, the rest seem to be untranslated. Passages like this from The Tribune (1883) (see excerpt 1) show how rich her writing is with details of daily life.

Now you (or myself, let’s be fair) may not have heard of Bazán’s 1886 novel The House of Ulloa before reading about it now, but according to translator Rose Caminals-Heath, “Spaniards, from the scholar to the housewife, consider it part of the timeless cultural legacy that defines them as people.” (Okay, sounds like we can file that one under “masterpiece.”)

I compared passages from a couple translations to the original text. Ethel Harriet Hearn’s translation (alt title: The Son of the Bondwoman) seems to be more snappy and Victorian, although Caminals-Heath seems to hew closer to the Spanish.