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The Joy of Captain Ribot

[Illustration: image of the book's cover]




THE JOY OF CAPTAIN RIBOT

AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION FROM THE
ORIGINAL OF

A. PALACIO VALDES

BY

MINNA CAROLINE SMITH

[Illustration: colophon]

NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S

1900

COPYRIGHT, 1900,
BY BRENTANOS.




Introduction


"We Americans are apt to think because we have banged the Spanish
war-ships to pieces that we are superior to the Spaniards, but here in
the field where there is always peace they shine our masters. If we have
any novelists to compare with theirs at their best, I should be puzzled
to think of them, and I should like to have some one else try"--wrote
William Dean Howells in _Literature_.

When a work by one of the world's masters of fiction has called forth a
remark like the foregoing from a leading man of letters in America, it
would be a misfortune if the public to whom the remark is addressed
might not enjoy the privilege of acquaintance with that work. And it was
this most charming novel by Senor Armando Palacio Valdes, "La Alegria
del Capitan Ribot," that prompted Mr. Howells to write those words. Any
reader must be hard to please who would not take the keenest delight in
a story presented with a touch so delicate. The scene is laid in
Valencia, one of the earth's famous garden spots, where the touch of the
classic hand,