Valera Commander Mendoza

"The story of Dan Fadrique Lopez de Mendoza, a man of seafaring adventures and a deist in the mould of the eighteenth-century philosophes, and Dona Blanca Roldan de Solis, a woman of unbounded pride and a Catholic driven by religious fanaticism, neither of which traits prevented her from having had an adulterous affair as a young woman in Lima, Peru, with Don Fadrique."--Back cover.

Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (1824-1905), one of nineteenth-century Spain's most respected authors, lived an international life-a career in the diplomatic service, with postings to more than a half dozen countries in Europe and the Americas.

The Mousetales are a group of whimsical, playful episodes that tell of children who are aided in nighttime distress by dedicated mouses of the Children?s Mouse Brigade. Henry and Ginger and their fellow Brigade members are involved in adventure after adventure as they ensure that children not suffer sleepless nights or fear of the dark. The Brigade accomplishes its missions through inventive approaches, prompted by unique mousevision and mousememory that calm the children, thereby making them feel safe. They are ably assisted in their efforts by a mousenet piggybacked to the humans? net; by their comprehension of English and, for some members, of French (although they cannot speak either language, only their native mousespeak); and, for travel, by the US Postal Service, on whose trucks the mouses hitch rides. Mousetale 1 relates the history of the Brigade and introduces Henry, the principal male mouse, and his training and first mission. Mousetale 2 recounts Henry?s introduction to Ginger, the principal female mouse, a connection that unfortunately gets off on the wrong paw for them but ends well for several children. Mousetale 3 tells of Henry and Ginger?s engagement and marriage and the children saved owing to Ginger?s intervention. Mousetale 4 introduces us to a little girl who is in distress on account of her father (and 4 is significant because we make the acquaintance of four identical baby mouses, all girls). Mousetale 5 and Mousetale 6 take us to the next generation as Henry and Ginger?s daughters also become members in good standing of the Children?s Mouse Brigade.

Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (1824-1905), one of 19th-century Spain's most well known authors, had a career in the diplomatic service with postings in Europe and the Americas. A serious student of his own and foreign literatures, Valera wrote novels, short stories, essays and literary criticism. Fluent in a number of languages, he also translated Longus's Daphne and Chloe from Greek into Spanish. The unifying thread of his creative work is "art for art's sake," that is, beauty as the end and purpose of imaginative literature, an ideal epitomised by Pepita Jiménez , long considered one of the best half dozen novels of 19th-century Spain. When it was first published in 1874, Pepita Jiménez became an instant success. Translations abound, as do the number of editions, upwards of fifteen, many of them annotated, some of them illustrated. It tells of Luis de Vargas, a devout twenty-two-year-old seminarian who has come home to visit with his father before entering the priesthood. The storyline unfolds when he meets a comely twenty-year-old widow named Pepita Jiménez and has his religious calling put to the test. On the heels of a fictitious prologue, Valera gives the reader multiple perspectives. The first part of the novel is epistolary in form, letters that Luis writes to the Dean, who is both his uncle and his mentor at the seminary, and everything - people, places, and activities - is filtered through his eyes. The second part reverts to the traditional all-seeing narrator of the realist novel, while the third consists of letters that Pedro de Vargas, Luis's father, writes to his brother the Dean.