[Gutenberg 7430] • Familiar Spanish Travels

Every one will have his feeling about Moorish architecture; mine is that a little goes a long way, and that it is too monotonous to compete with the Gothic in variety, while it lacks the dignity of any form of the Greek or the Renaissance. -from "Sevillian Aspects and Incidents" William Dean Howells was one of the most influential critics and editors of the 19th century, his championing of writers such as Mark Twain, Henry James, Emily Dickinson, and Stephan Crane shaping the course of American literature. That powerful personality comes to the fore in this 1913 travelogue, in which Howells' journeys in Spain-informed by his daunting historical and literary erudition-become the stuff of an intelligent and opinionated narrative investigating the beauty, mysteries, and paradoxes of a romantic nation and its passionate people. A classic of travel writing, this portrait of Spain a century ago continues to enrapture armchair adventurers today.