One of the most celebrated writers of criticism in nineteenth-century Spain, Leopoldo Alas employed his satirical talent to powerful and humorous effect in fiction as well.

In His Only Son, Bonifacio Reyes, a romantic flautist by vocation-and a failed clerk and kept husband by necessity-dreams of a novelesque life. Tied to his shrill and sickly wife by her purse strings, he enters timidly into a love affair with Serafina, a seductive second-rate opera singer, encouraged by her manager who mistakes Bonifacio for a potential patron. Meanwhile, Bonifacio’s wife experiences a parallel awakening and in the midst of a long-barren marriage, surprises them both with a son-but is it Bonifacio’s?

In the accompanying novella, Dona Berta, an aged, poor, but well-born woman forfeits her beloved estate in search of a portrait that may be all that remains of the secret love of her life.