Valera

Valera, DON JUAN VALERA Y ALCALÁ-GALIANO, Spanish writer and politician, was born of good family at Cabra (Cordova), 18th October 1824, and in the diplomatic service lived successively at Naples, Lisbon, Rio, Dresden, and St Petersburg. He next plunged into politics, contributing actively to Albarada's opposition journal, El Contemporaneo, and thereafter rose and fell with the fortunes of his party, as deputy, minister of commerce, plenipotentiary to Frankfort, minister of public instruction, ambassador at Lisbon, Washington, Brussels, councillor of state, senator, and member of the Spanish Academy in Madrid. His Estudios críticos sobre literatura (1864) and Disertaciones y juicios literarios (1882) brought him reputation; but his fame depends on his romances, Pepita Jiménez (1874; Eng. trans. 1891), Las ilusiones del Doctor Faustino (1876), El Comendador Mendoza (1877), and Doña Luz (1878). Besides these he has published poems (1858), Dramatic Experiments (1878), short stories (1882), and Cartas Americanas (1889).