This edition of one of the best known of modern Spanish novels has been
prepared for the use of college classes in Spanish that have already
mastered the elements of Spanish grammar, but have not yet had much
practice in reading. The editor has found by actual experience that it
is safe to undertake the story in three or four months from the time
when the study of the language is begun, that is, in the second half of
the first year's work in the subject. As the book is not a long one, it
should be possible to read it entire before the close of the year.
Indeed, with an earnest class, even less time than this will be found to
suffice.
The novel is printed exactly (save correction of printer's errors) as it
appears in the eighth Spanish edition (Madrid, 1896). At the same time,
great pains have been taken to make the orthography and accentuation
conform in all respects to the standard of the last edition of the
Spanish Academy's Dictionary. The Notes are considerably fuller than is
customary in college editions of modern works in foreign languages. This
has been made necessary in part by the dreadful insufficiency of the
existing Spanish-English dictionaries, and in part by the editor's
desire to afford the student some aid in dealing with grammatical
peculiarities not fully discussed in the more available text-books. As a
further help to grammatical study, numerous references have been
inserted to Ramsey's _Text-Book of Modern Spanish_ (New York, 1894) and
to Knapp's _Grammar of the Modern Spanish Language_ (Boston, 1891).