The storms of ’48

Las tormentas del 48 is the first novel of the fourth series of the National Episodes of Benito Pérez Galdós.
We enter this new series of Galdosian episodes by the hand of a new protagonist, José García Fajardo, a provincial man educated in Rome who ascends socially in the Madrid of the Moderate Party, in the year 1848. The young man is of great sympathy and good living, but he is also a subject of dubious moral reputation. In Las tormentas del 48 Galdós will show us through his memoirs the impact that European political convulsions and the emergence of new socialist ideas have on the Spain of Isabel II. The great social and revolutionary movements that agitate Europe in Spain translate into a military revolt led by the dictator Narváez, a supporter of the iron fist. And with the rise of a bourgeoisie whose members have enriched themselves in the slipstream of the confiscation of Mendizábal, that is, with speculation and favoritism, and not with work.
In The storms of 48 “our protagonist, his love of play and fun has ended up taking him to an economically unsustainable situation, a circumstance from which he will emerge through a marriage that will not only enrich him but, predictably, will even give him a noble title.”