Introductory

Enrique Pérez Escrich (1829–1897) was born in Valencia, Spain, but he went to Madrid when a young man. Pérez Escrich was a prolific writer of popular stories. See Julio Cejador y Frauca, Historia de la Lengua y Literatura Castellana, Vol. VIII (pages 56–57), Madrid, 1918.

Miguel Ramos Carrión (1845–1915) was born in Zamora, Spain. He wrote poetry, prose fiction and literary criticism, but he is best known for his comedies and light operas. Ramos Carrión wrote many plays, including Zaragüeta, in collaboration with Aza. See Cejador, Vol. VIII, pages 385–386.

Vital Aza (1851–1912), a native of Asturias in northern Spain, was by profession a physician, but he became a popular writer of plays. In about twenty of these, some of which are translations or rearrangements of older plays, Aza collaborated with Ramos Carrión. See Cejador, Vol. IX, page 113.

Zaragüeta was first performed at the Teatro Lara in Madrid, February 14, 1894.

In this edition of Fortuna and Zaragüeta some words and sentences have been omitted from the text because they were uninteresting and unimportant. In a few cases expressions have been left out because they were unusual and therefore not adapted to elementary instruction. The text of both works is otherwise intact, except for the following substitutions:

The illustrations of Zaragüeta are reproductions, only slightly modified, of the ones taken from photographs that appeared in Blanco y Negro, March, 1894.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The editors are glad to take this opportunity of expressing their thanks to Professor Juan Cano, Mr. Antonio Alonso, and Miss Madre Merrill of Indiana University, and Dr. Alexander Green and Miss Ellen E. Aldrich of D. C. Heath and Company for their valuable assistance in the preparation of this book.