The best work of Pereda was of the Mountain, Valera and Fernán Caballero write of Andalucía, Palacio Valdés of Astúrias, and similarly the Gallegans, Valle-Inclán and Señora Pardo Bazán have found their best inspiration in Galicia, and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez in his native Valencia. Valencia is a fertile land of fierce heat and dazzling light--the light so wonderfully reflected in the work of the Valencian painter Joaquín Sorolla. Blasco Ibánez has written some striking novels that have no connection with Valencia, but his best and most delightful work is steeped in the life of the immense Valencian plain (in “La Barraca,” an intense story of a boycott of the Huerta); of the city of Valencia (in “Arroz y Tartana”); of the rice-growing, fever-stricken marshes of the Albufera, famous for its fishing and shooting, near Valencia (“Cañas y Barro”); of the fishermen and smugglers of El Grao and the Valencian coastline (“Flor de Mayo”); of love among the oranges in the orchard of Spain (“Entre Naranjos”). Blasco Ibáñez excels in portraying the lives and thoughts and struggles of the simple fisherman and peasant--hardworking as Batiste, or magnificently idle as Pimentó; and in describing popular customs and traditions,--a simple procession in floodtime (as in “Entre Naranjos”) or the dances and _festeigs_, courtings, of the _atlóts_ and _atlotas_ of Ibiza (in “Los Muertos mandan”). The hero of “Los Muertos mandan” (1909), Don Jaime or Chaume, is not a peasant, but a member of an ancient family of Mallorcan nobles, hemmed in by tradition and inherited instincts. The background, however, of descriptions of Mallorca and lawless peasant life in Ibiza, with its woods and orchards and white farms girt by a green transparent sea, contribute more powerfully to the charm of the book than the wrestling of Don Jaime against the clinging influence of the innumerable dead, who still prevail. But, indeed, Blasco Ibáñez’ presentation of any strenuous life-struggle is forcible and imposing. It reflects his own personality. His creed is one of restless striving and discontent with the apathy too frequent in Spain. His activity is immense: though little over forty years of age, his novels are already many in number, short stories and articles are continually appearing from his pen, he lectures, travels, translates, publishes, controls a Valencian paper, _El Pueblo_, and till the autumn of 1908 represented Valencia in Parliament as a Republican; now his energies are occupied in founding two towns--to be called New Valencia and Cervantes--for colonies of Valencians in the Argentine.