The following stories from Alarcón are offered to the student of Spanish
in the belief that the easy style, the interest of the narrative, and
the incidental sidelights that they throw on Spanish life and history
will make the book a welcome one in the earlier stages of study.
The stories have been very fully annotated, and nothing that seemed to
offer any real difficulty has been passed over. All proper names have
been explained, with the exception of a few too well known or too
insignificant to justify comment. The notes are further reënforced by an
_Idiomatic Commentary_, to be studied in connection with the text. By
frequent reviews and by oral drill in translating the idioms from either
language to the other, with changes of person, tense, etc., wherever
possible, the Commentary should enable the student to attain to a real
mastery of the idioms that are here tabulated.
Easy exercises for translation into Spanish are added. They are based on
very short passages from the text, and are so graded and arranged as to
afford a systematic review of the elements of grammar, a drill which
beginners always need.
The vocabulary, while registering all the words in the text, except such
as are nearly or quite identical, does not aim at giving, without any
labor of adaptation on the part of the student, the precise equivalent
required.
The stories are complete, except for a few trifling omissions dictated
by class-room proprieties.
Acknowledgment is gratefully made for a number of welcome suggestions
due to my esteemed colleague Mr. A.R. Seymour.