His beginning in the field of fiction, Armando Palacio Valdés made in 1881, with "Young Mr. Octavio," following it up, in 1883, with "Martha and Mary." Then, between "The Idyl of an Invalid" and "Riverita" came "José." The novel here offered, a specimen of his work combining pathos with humor, was printed the year after "Maximina," that is to say, in 1888.
When "The Fourth Estate" was brought out Valdés was thirty-five. He was born on the 4th of October, 1853, in a little village called Entralgo, where his family owned a summer villa. The greater part of the year they spent at Avilés, at which place young Armando first went to school. He continued his studies at Oviedo, and then went to Madrid, with the object of graduating as a lawyer.
His real bent, that of authorship, however, soon declared itself, so that while yet occupied with his legal studies he contributed articles on philosophical and theological subjects to the Spanish "Revista Europea"—of which periodical he eventually joined the staff and became the editor. In this capacity he earned a national reputation as a censor of literature, his articles and sketches pertaining to literary criticism being collected in several volumes. But after 1881 he devoted little time to commenting on other people's books, preferring to bend his main energies to creative endeavor.
Seven of his novels have been mentioned above, and among those subsequently produced seven more complete the list of his novels best known to the Spanish public. These are "Sister Saint Sulpice," "Foam," "Faith," "The Grandee," "The Origin of Thought," "The Dandies of Cadiz," and "The Joy of Captain Ribot."