Benito Perez Galdos is often called the Spanish Charles Dickens or the Spanish Balzac and is
one of the great European nineteenth-century novelists. Misericordia (1897) is set among the
Madrid poor and to give his novel authenticity Galdos spent many months studying the lives of
the destitute and of professional beggars. The theme of the novel is the problem of goodness
embodied in the servant Benina whose entire life is a struggle to keep the middle-class family
she works for from sliding into poverty. "Crushed by poverty or the weight of their
pretensions the high and low life of 19th century Madrid provides the cast for this enjoyably
bleak portrait of a family's decline fall and recovery. The widow Dona Francisca reduced from
salon to slum is protected by her servant Benita who begs and barters in a daily battle with
starvation and her mistress's pride. When a sudden inheritance enriches the old crow Benita is
cast aside. Galdos's Spain teems with saints and sinners corrupted as much by poverty as by
wealth." -- The Sunday Times
