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[Pg i]

BLOOD AND SAND

[Pg iii]

BLOOD AND SAND

A Novel

BY

VICENTE BLASCO IBÁÑEZ

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH

BY

Mrs. W. A. GILLESPIE

GROSSET & DUNLAP
Publishers   New York
By arrangement with E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc

[Pg iv]

Copyright, 1919, 1922,
By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
——
All Rights Reserved
——

Printed in the United States of America

[Pg v]

BLASCO IBÁÑEZ AND "SANGRE Y ARENA"

One of the secrets of the immense power exercised by the novels ofVicente Blasco Ibáñez is that they are literary projections of hisdynamic personality. Not only the style, but the book, is here the man.This is especially true of those of his works in which the thesiselement predominates, and in which the famous author of The FourHorsemen of the Apocalypse appears as a novelist of ideas-in-action. Itis, of course, possible to divide his works into the "manners" or"periods" so dear to the literary cataloguers, and it may thus beindicated that there are such fairly distinct genres as the regionalnovel, the sociological tale and the psychological study; a convenientclassification of this sort would place among the regional novels suchmasterpieces as La Barraca and Cañas y Barro,—among the novels ofpurpose such powerful writings as La Catedral, La Bodega and Sangrey Arena,—among the psychological studies the introspective La MajaDesnuda. The war novels, including The Four Horsemen and the epicMare Nostrum, would seem to form another group. Such non-literarydiversions as grouping and regrouping, however, had perhaps best be leftto those who relish the task. It is for the present more important tonote that the passionate flame of a deeply human purpose welds the man'sliterary labors into a larger unity. His pen, as his person, has beengiven over to humanity. He is as fearless in his denunciation of evil ashe is powerful in his description of it; he has lived his ideas as wellas fashioned them into enduring documents; he reveals not only a newSpain, but a new world.

While Blasco Ibáñez does not desire to be known as regionalnovelist—nor does a complete view of his numerous works justify such anarrow description—he...