Los galeotes

Preface: The text of this edition of Los galeotes is taken from that published in 1900 by the Sociedad de Autores Españoles, Madrid. It is unabridged and has not been altered except for the correction of one or two obvious misprints and amendment of the accentuation in accordance with the latest rulings of the Real Academia Espanola.

It has not been considered necessary to append a complete vocabulary, and A Standard List of Spanish Words and Idioms by Hayward Keniston (Harrap, 1941) has been used as a basis for excluding words which readers may be expected to know after three years’ study of the language. Asterisks appearing in the text of the play indicate those words, phrases, proper nouns, etc., for which Notes have been provided in this edition.

Los galeotes, the theme of which is based 011 one of the adventures of Don Ouixote, was hailed as the first full-length play by Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero, and for it they received an award from the Spanish Royal Academy. The Spanish Press, on the day following the première of the play, acclaimed it as ‘a genuinely Spanish play in plot, characters, language, sentiment, and in the virtues and even the vices of the different characters. Everything that happens in the play occurs as a natural consequence of the clash of personalities; as in life, it is the characters with their good or bad qualities who weave the pattern of events… [Margaret Mason].