331
All the information herewith supplied about El Gobierno was obtained from a direct study of the paper itself, the only known collection of which exists in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (Sign: 1/51515-8). None exists in the Hemeroteca Municipal of Madrid or in Barcelona, two other major national deposits of nineteenth century Spanish publications. Nor do any of the major studies of the Spanish press mentioned in note 327 refer to it.
Throughout the lifespan of El Gobierno there appear none of the typical boxes or other devices under or near the membrete editorial which would contain a list of the staff of redactores or directores. According to its inaugural prospectus, El Gobierno was a diario, «excepto los lunes y días siguientes a festivos, a menos que las circunstancias exijan que vea la luz pública en estos últimos». In spite of an error in the numeration of issues that was never corrected (the one after Núm. 474 was mistakenly designated 745, and thus carried consecutively to its final issue, Núm. 905), El Gobierno published only 636 issues.
332
On December 31, 1874, El Gobierno printed only a broadside notice to the effect that «De Orden del señor Duque de Sexto, gobernador civil de la provincia, queda en suspenso la publicación de El Gobierno. Esperamos que nuestros suscritores nos dispensarán una falta, que no está en nuestra mano remediar, y de la cual procuraremos oportunamente indemnizarles. Miércoles 31 de Diciembre de 1874. La Redacción».
333
See Antonio Espina, El cuarto poder, Madrid, 1960, p. 204. In the episodio, Cánovas (1912), Galdós himself gives a list of these and other newspapers which were suspended slightly later (January 2, 1875) after the same coup. Significantly, El Gobierno is mentioned among them but without other qualification (See O.C. III, ed. 1963, Chapter IV, p. 1285).
334
Galdós wrote a commemorative article on Cervantes («El aniversario de la muerte de Cervantes») for Las Cortes on April 23, 1869. His long two-part article on Lope de Vega («Aniversario de Lope de Vega») appeared in La Nación on November 26 and December 20, 1865 (See also O.C. VI, ed. 1951, pp. 1537-1539). He also composed two other different articles on Lope for the Revista del Movimiento Intelectual de Europa on December 3 and December 10, 1865. Similarly, six articles of a series entitled «Galería de figuras de cera», describing ten important contemporary personages were reprinted from their original publication in La Nación in the small El Correo de España early in the year 1870.
335
A good example of the confusion surrounding Galdós' journalistic career is demonstrated by the many references to periodicals for which he is said to have worked, but for which it is safe to declare he never did -on the basis of direct analysis of the publications in question. Excluding the newspapers in Las Palmas to which he contributed as a youth, as well as the others mentioned in our text and in other notes, one instance of erroneous but controversial data was that Galdós himself revealed that he had worked for El Combate (Madrid, 1870). This disclosure was made in an interview with an anonymous reporter for ABC in the article titled simply «Pérez Galdós» which was printed on May 29, 1907 (Núm. 724, p. 4) at a point where Galdós began to discuss the start of his career as a novelist. In our judgment, Galdós probably meant «El Debate» or else was misquoted by the reporter, although the possibility that he waited until 1907 to reveal such a dark secret is heightened by Brian J. Dendle's interesting views that he suppressed the extent of complicity on the part of the editor of El Combate, José Paúl y Angulo in the death of General Prim («Galdós and the Death of Prim», AG IV (1969), pp. 63-71) -for more than creative or political reasons. On the other hand, Galdós reference to El Combate may well have been a creative-process-inspired slip of the tongue attributable to his involvement at the very moment with the episodios nacionales which embraced the Prim era, ending with España trágica (1909) which contains the story of Paúl y Angulo, El Combate, and the assassination of Prim (See O.C. III, ed. 1963, Chapters XXIII-XXXI, pp. 951-978).
At his death, biographical articles on Galdós published in the Spanish press dealt with details of his journalistic career with variant degrees of accuracy. For instance, he was said to have been a redactor of El Contemporáneo (Madrid, 1861-1865) to which Bécquer contributed his «Desde mi celda» series, but as yet there is no basis for this judgment (See Anón., «Apuntes biográficos. Galdós», El Mundo, Núm. 4341, January 4, 1920, p. 4). The same article also referred to his having worked for El Parlamento, as did yet another reporter, slightly altering the name to El Parlamentario (Anón., «Datos biográficos. Una vida gloriosa», ABC, Núm. 5298, January 4, 1920, p. 10). The reporters in both cases were probably referring to Galdós' political articles of the «Crónica parlamentaria» series in Las Cortes from 1869 to 1870.
Hartzenbusch (op. cit., p. 409) lists Galdós as a redactor of Las Novedades and La Nación, but does not include him on the staff of Las Cortes (p. 272). Even the more precise Ossorio y Bernard (op. cit., p. 342) is somewhat vague about periodicals for which Galdós worked or to which he contributed, such as «El Correo, La España Moderna, La Ilustración Española, Nuevo Mundo, Alma Española, El Progreso Agrícola, La Alhambra, Gente Vieja, y otras publicaciones». The «El Correo» to which Ossorio y Bernard refers is actually El Correo de España (Madrid, 1870-1872) to which Galdós contributed a number of articles and a cuento. Similarly, La Ilustración Española is really La Ilustración Española y Americana in which Galdós published only the cuento, La mula y el buey on December 22, 1876. To the best of our knowledge, he published nothing in Gente Vieja although he probably intended to, for his name appears on its cabecera.
Besides his well-known association with La Ilustración de Madrid (Madrid, 1870-1872) of which Bécquer had been director, Galdós also had mother momentary association -similar to that of El Gobierno -with another revista, La América, to which he contributed the article «La rosa y la camelia», on August 28, 1867, as a reprint from its original appearance in La Nación on March 10 and 13, 1866. This was Galdós' only article in La America although his name remained on its list of redactores from 1867 to 1879.
336
Galdós was redactor and later director of the Revista de España from January 1872 through October 1873, and director of El Debate from January 1871 until the end of the same year. One source quoting Galdós however (Olmet y García Carraffa, op. cit., p. 38) indicates that he was still producing materials for El Debate toward the end of 1874 when it was also suspended as a result of the golpe de estado.
337
«Centenario del Dos de Mayo. Al Pueblo de Madrid», El País, Núm. 7528, March 15, 1908, p. 1; and, «La esfinge del Centenario», El País, Núm. 7575, May 2, 1908, p. 2.
338
Galdós' interest in the theme of the Dos de mayo de 1808 went beyond his fictional treatments of it in the episodios nacionales. He also dealt with it in some of his early newspaper articles; in La Nación it appeared as «Folletín. Revista de la semana. Mayo: el 2, el 3, etc.», Núm. 598, May 6, 1866, p. 6, and in the Revista del Movimiento Intelectual de Europa as «Revista de la semana», Núm. 18, May 7, 1866, p. 137. The two anonymous articles on the Dos de mayo de 1808 theme which appear in El Debate on May 2 and 3, 1871 are also probably his (Cf. «El Dos de Mayo», Núms. 89-90, p. 2, respectively).
339
See fifth paragraph in text of «El Dos de Mayo», also note 349.
340
Cf. Walter T. Pattison, «The Pre-History of the Episodios Nacionales», Hispania, LIII (1970), pp. 857-863; William H. Shoemaker, «'Los Pepes' of Galdós in 1868 and 1887: Two Stages of His Style», Hispania, same issue, pp. 887-898; and Robert J. Weber, The MIAU Manuscript of Benito Pérez Galdós, Berkeley, 1964.