Torquemada

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Benito Pérez Galdós (1843 - 1920) was a Spanish novelist, playwright, chronicler, and politician. He is considered one of the best representatives of 19th-century realist fiction in Spain and a key narrator in the history of literature in the Spanish language, recognized by many as the greatest Spanish novelist after Miguel de Cervantes. The Tetralogy of the Novels of Torquemada is a set of four novels by Galdós published between 1889 and 1895. The first, titled Torquemada en la hoguera (1889), is part of the "cycle of matter," the first of the contemporary Spanish novels. Within the "spiritualist cycle," Galdós wrote, over three consecutive years starting in 1893, Torquemada en la cruz (1893), Torquemada en el purgatorio (1894), and Torquemada y San Pedro (1895). Its protagonist, Francisco Torquemada, is a moneylender who thrives in the Isabeline Madrid of the early Restoration period through usury. Critics consider him "one of the great misers of universal literature."