Carmen de Burgos : Three novellas

the long version

Carmen de Burgos (1867-1932), an influential journalist, socio-political activist, and a key literary figure in the cultural ferment of pre-war Madrid, is currently being rediscovered, having languished in a long and regrettable oblivion during the Franco years. This scholarly edition of three stories by de Burgos includes the unabridged texts, vocabulary, notes, chronology, bibliography, 'temas de debate y discusión', and a critical introduction. Confidencias is the fictional diary of a young woman, describing her first adulterous relationship and exploiting the narratological possibilities of the diary form. La mujer fría is a vampire story featuring perhaps the very first pitiable vampire, or at least one of the earliest examples of this type, whilst ingeniously maintaining undecidability as to whether the protagonist is supernatural. Puñal de claveles narrates a wedding-day elopement. Inspired by the real-life 'Crimen de Níjar', Federico García Lorca drew on both stories for his Bodas de sangre.