“Costumbrismo in Spanish Literature and Its European Analogues”, Nonfictional Romantic Prose. Expanding Borders, Steven P. Sondrup & Virgil Nemoianu (eds.), Ámsterdam/Filadelfia (PA), John Benjamins, 2004, pp. 333-346. ISBN: 90-272-3451-5. DOI: 10.1075/chlel.xviii.26los.

1. 1
COSTUMBRISMO IN SPANISH LITERATURE
AND ITS EUROPEAN ANALOGUES
Nonfictional Romantic Prose. Expanding Borders.
Steven P. Sondrup & Virgil Nemoianu (eds.),
Amsterdam / Philadelphia (PA), 2004, p. 333-346.
1. Introduction
The genre of costumbrismo is based on a true manifestation of Romanticism, the study of which
allows us to understand still better the genre and the movement, as costumbrismo in the Romantic
period is clearly distinguished from earlier depictions of customs and manners. It is not easy to
establish a general style for costumbrismo owing to the wide variety of both its Spanish and general
European manifestations. We can, nevertheless, carry out a series of soundings as to the major
manifestations of the genre. These are two: its typical manifestation in Spanish literature, and its
crystallisation in the literature of customs and manners in Europe. The task is twofold: firstly, to
describe Spanish costumbrismo; secondly, to analyse the major features of English and French writings
on social life and customs.
Given the character of this task, we cannot spend too much time on aspects which derive from
either the theoretical essay or scientific research. In conformity with the general tenor of this volume,
it is a matter of providing the foundations for the construction of a comparative history of European
literature.
2. Spanish Costumbrismo
Because of literary costumbrismo, Spanish literature gained the main caracteristics of Romantic
literature. Due to the unexpected innovation of some of its manifestations, it revived in just a few
years from the profound lethargy in which it had found itself owing to social causes and to an
inappropriate assimilation of foreign literature. In addition, its relation with journalistic models of the
18th and the beginning of the 19th century made it possible to Spain to recover a neglected part of
her European roots.
Scholarly descriptions of costumbrismo coincide in their general features: a brief literary
presentation of typical customs, incidents, institutions and personalities and ways of life, generally
contemporaneous. This wide definition can be enriched by focusing attention on both the genesis in
time and the vehicle par excellence of costumbrismo (periodical press from the 18th century) and the
general picture with which the genre remains marked (description of forms of collective life). But
there is no room for the smallest doubt that this delimitation is not exclusive to Spanish costumbrismo.
In a more restricted sense the definition of costumbrismo, considered as a typically Spanish product,
has not infrequently led to a recourse to the causes which brought it about and, more specifically, to
critical moments in that country’s history. This delimitation of costumbrismo in Spain is rooted in the
nationalist sentiment and in the mental upheaval produced by the social upheavals of the first decades
of the 19th century.

2. 2
a) The Writers
Serafín Estébanez Calderón (1799-1867) signed his costumbrist articles with the pseudonym
“Lone Man in Ambush” or simply “Lone Man”1. He contributed to the short-lived Correo Literario y
Mercantil (Literary and Business Courier) founded by José María de Carnerero in 1828, to the Cartas
Españolas (Spanish Letters) started three years later and to the Revista Española (Spanish Review). In
1848 he collected his costumbrist work in his book Escenas andaluzas (Andalusian Scenes). The tone
of his work is uninhibited. He develops his themes with wit and agility. He has no qualms about
introducing himself into the thread of his narrative from time to time, undoubtedly to lighten the
serious perspective of the narrative. His work is bursting with local colour, “with Spanishness”2 as he
puts it. Everywhere there abound allusions to slang, to “Spanish features” and to the “genuine
working-class districts”3. This return to the most ancestral origins explains his interest in language
and its “oddities” thus acquire a positive connotation: they distinguish the language and its speakers
from foreigners, thus creating a self-protecting community. From this search for roots in one’s
homeland can be traced the prominent role of the people, the only ones who have “no mixture or
cross-breeding of any heresy”4. Estébanez Calderón’s interest is centred on one particular region: the
author believes that only in Andalusia can the synthesis of Spain be found; more concretely, at very
specific moments: the fiestas and their pageantry: dance, song and bullfighting. Curiously, these are
the ones which to a great extent endure in everyone’s imagination: an open field for comparative
literature on imagery.
Ramón de Mesonero Romanos (1803-1882), also known by his pseudonym “The Curious
Talker”5, is certainly one of the most influential prose writers of Spanish costumbrismo. His first
costumbrist efforts date from 1822 with the publication of Mis ratos perdidos o ligero bosquejo de Madrid
de 1820 y 1821 (My Wasted Time, or a Light Sketch of Madrid in 1820 and 1821), in which he outlines
customs and manners of the Spanish capital. The different conceptions that Mesonero Romanos has
of Madrid are three: his “physical” vision (Manual de Madrid, Handbook of Madrid, 1831), his
“historical” vision (El antiguo Madrid, Ancient Madrid, 1861) and his “moral” vision; this last is
certainly the one which has the greatest interest for costumbrist literature. Such literature remains
engraved in his different pictures of customs and manners published in the above-mentioned Cartas
Españolas and in the Semanario Pintoresco Español (Spanish Picturesque Weekly) which he himself
founded in 1836. In their great majority they were all published first in his book Panorama matritense
(Panorama of Madrid, 1835) and, definitively, in Escenas matritenses (Scenes of Madrid, 1842). Two
years before he died, in Memorias de un setentón, natural y vecino de Madrid (Memoirs of a Septuagenarian,
Native and Resident of Madrid, 1880) he described his personal invention of costumbrismo: “I proposed
to myself to carry out my plan by means of light sketches or pictures on an easel, in which, helped by
simple and dramatic action, believable and varied characters, and lively and genuine dialogue, I tried
to bring together as far as possible both interest and the principal conditions of the novel and the
play”6. Before Mesonero no-one had painted Madrid with the precision and wisdom of Mesonero.
1
“El Solitario en acecho”, “El Solitario”.
2
“de españolismo”.
3
“rasgos españoles”, “barrios populares castizos”.
4
“mezcla alguna ni encruzamiento de herejía alguna”.
5
“El Curioso parlante”.
6
“Propúseme desarrollar mi plan por medio de ligeros bosquejos o cuadros de caballete, en que, ayudado de una acción
dramática y sencilla, caracteres verosímiles y variados, y diálogo animado y castizo, procurase reunir en lo posible el interés
y las condiciones principales de la novela y del drama”.

3. 3
His main model can be found in the classical Spanish theatre and in the picaresque novel. Even so
and unlike Estébanez Calderón, this portraitist of Madrid generally avoids the pompousness of a
baroque style. Mesonero does not put special care into the form but rather into the examination of
the capital that he carries out; more specifically of the changes that it was then experiencing in so far
as they indicated the simultaneous transformation of Spanish society.
In 1828 Mariano José de Larra (1809-1837) created El Duende Satírico del Día (The Daily Satirical
Goblin), a short-lived review in which this paladin of Spanish journalism only managed to publish
five articles. In 1832 Larra founded a new review, El Pobrecito Hablador (The Poor Little Speaker), of
which only fourteen issues appeared. From 1835, Larra began to write in the Revista Española (Spanish
Review). This was where he first used his pseudonym “Fígaro”. Other pseudonyms used by Larra are
“The Satirical Goblin”, “The Poor Little Speaker”, and “The Bachelor Juan Pérez de Munguía”7.
Under these pseudonyms appeared more than two hundred articles by Larra in the Revista Española
(1832-1835), El Correo de las Damas (The Ladies’ Mail), El Observador (The Observer), Revista Mensajero
(Messenger Review) (1833-1835), El Español (The Spaniard), El Mundo (The World) and El Redactor
General (The General Editor, 1835-1836).
Larra’s originality rests on three elements: his use of language, his critical contribution and his
understanding of the modernity of the genre. With regard to his mastery of the language, Varela
highlights his genius in expression and his suicidal efforts to submit everything to the tribunal of his
personal temperament; that is, to his autobiographical Romanticism. Here we enter what is certainly
one of the most important aspects of Spanish critical costumbrismo: to go beyond the merely
circumstantial in order to reach the permanent kernel. His criticism is born of his love for his country
and his desire to improve it, knowing its weak points perfectly. One of these is laziness, as he
describes it in “Vuelva usted mañana” (Come back tomorrow, sir). Larra’s criticism is loaded with an
irony that is all the more biting for being sly and underhand. In contrast to other great Spanish
costumbrists, Larra is opposed to linguistic traditionalism, a true iceberg of the backwardness which
afflicts Spain.
Larra’s second characteristic element is his literary criticism. In it we find a great fund of
intelligent ideas which are undeniably useful for critics even today. Larra understands the meaning of
something as essential to the literature of the time as physiology and physiognomy. He himself
describes the requirements of his profession: “It is […] necessary for a writer of customs not only to
have a clear-sighted vision and great familiarity with the world, but also to know how to distinguish
which are the true strokes which suffice to give the physiognomy; to go any further is not to paint a
face, but to seize hold of a microscope with the desire of painting the pores”8 (“Panorama matritense.
I”). These reflections invite us to examine what, according to Larra, the object and the form of the
Spanish costumbrist article should be. The costumbrist must achieve the necessary symbiosis between
moral content and aesthetic form: “It is absolutely necessary to marry the deepest and most
philosophical observation with light and apparent superficiality of style, precision with elegance”9.
Together with this, the writer must attempt a “most exquisite delicacy, so as not to mar his portraits
with that portion of the domestic scene whose veil the indiscreet hand of the moralist must never
7
“El bachiller Juan Pérez de Munguía”.
8
“Es […] necesario que el escritor de costumbres no solo tenga vista perspicaz y grande uso del mundo, sino que sepa
distinguir además cuáles son los verdaderos trazos que bastan a dar la fisonomía; descender a los demás no es retratar una
cara, sino asir de un microscopio y querer pintar los poros”.
9
“Es indispensable hermanar la más profunda y filosófica observación con la ligera y aparente superficialidad de estilo,
la exactitud con la gracia”.

4. 4
draw back, knowing what to leave in the shadowy corner of the canvas”10. Only in this way will he
manage “to be sharp without becoming too biting, because harshness does not correct”11 (“Panorama
matritense. II”).
This second element is enriched by a third: the awareness of the modernity of his task. More
than anyone else, Larra is aware both of the novelty of the costumbrist production and of its
conditions to deliver what Spanish society is asking of the writer of customs and manners. It is
something that is highlighted in a special way in “Panorama matritense, I”. In this article, Larra
provides a pointed description of those moralistic authors “who have already studied man and the
society of their times”12. But this was not enough, because they had limited themselves to considering
man in general: the article on customs and manners directs its attention to man as he is and as he
develops among his equals.
b) Summary of Spanish “Costumbrismo”
Despite the common points existing between these three writers, it is clear that each one
preserves his own idiosyncrasies. The most notable features of the style of Estébanez Calderón
(accuracy, imitation of the prose of the Golden Age, inflated wordiness) do not appear in the writing
of Mesonero Romanos. On the other hand, Estébanez Calderón directs his emphasis particularly
toward the lower classes of the people, who better preserve the spirit and essence of Andalusian
culture. Very different in this aspect are Mesonero Romanos and Larra, who describe and write above
all for the middle classes of Spanish society.
Nevertheless both Estébanez Calderón and Mesonero Romanos paint Spanish society in a
nostalgic light; a point in which they differ noticeably from Larra. They are united in their intention
to preserve in art what is disappearing in reality (Quirk). This aspect, intimately linked to Romanticism
where the painting of customs and manners flourishes, leads the authors of Escenas andaluzas and
Escenas matritenses where very few writers had gone before. If perhaps the “native” is condemned to
disappear, the spirit of Romanticism will at least ensure that it remains on record “as the skilful
sculptor imprints in the wax (or perhaps the plaster) the mask of the corpse which will vanish from
the face of the earth to hide within it”13 (Mesonero Romanos). It is a traditionalism and an
“indigenism” proper to Romanticism, something that will later be worked out again in the fictitious
revival of Valle-Inclán.
Larra is quite different in this aspect as he tries at all costs to unmask and destroy what he calls
the hypocrisy of society. Larra’s tone is bitter, and his satire biting. It is no surprise that critics like
Lorenzo-Rivero have drawn a close parallel between the painting of Goya and the articles of Larra.
Just as in the Caprichos (Whimsies) of the former, Larra has recourse to caricature and the grotesque
to criticise hypocrisy: this is what happens, for instance, in “El mundo todo es máscaras” (The world
is all masks). In this aspect, perhaps because of their leaning towards caricature, both Larra and Goya
anticipate the painting and the literature of the Impressionists: a good example of this is the relation
that exists between the work of them both and the grotesque tales of Valle-Inclán. In the same way,
Larra also anticipates Galdós in the genre he uses and in his concept of progress. Here too Unamuno,
10
“suma delicadeza para no manchar sus cuadros con aquella parte de la escenas domésticas cuyo velo no debe descorrer
jamás la mano indiscreta del moralista, para saber lo que ha que dejar en la parte oscura del lienzo”.
11
“ser picante, sin tocar en demasiado cáustico, porque la acrimonia no corrige”.
12
“habían estudiado ya al hombre y la sociedad de su tiempo”.
13
“a la manera que el diestro escultor imprime en cera (o sea en yeso) la mascarilla del cadáver que va a desaparecer de
la superficie de la tierra para ocultarse en su interior”.

5. 5
who is extremely eloquent in his criticism of the widespread national paralysis, can be included. All
of which demonstrates once again that Spanish Romanticism leads to Spanish Modernism. Much the
same occurred in Mesonero Romanos when his nostalgia led him to preserve in art the indigenous
essence which was disappearing; something which Valle-Inclán perfected at the beginning of the 20th
century.
c) Origins of Spanish “Costumbrismo”
It is clear that the costumbrist article was born in Spain in an independent way and by the hand
of the periodical press; we must nevertheless show the debt that the Spanish writers contracted from
the foreign writers who preceded them. There is much critical material on the French contribution;
although there are no doubts about the latter, it is often not recognised that the English influence
was earlier and clearly differentiated from it. In this respect the good work of Marún to unearth the
topics in which it is easy to fall into a weak comparative method, if one studies the bilateral relations
in a superficial way, is noteworthy.
The analysis of customs and manners which appears in the Spanish articles is related to the
corresponding study of society being carried out in England. One can go back as far as Richard Steele
(1672-1729), who founded The Tatler (1709-1711), of which he was the editor under the pseudonym
of Isaac Bickerstaff. In this journal were published his articles and also those of his friend Joseph
Addison (1672-1719). Two years later they founded The Spectator (1711-1712, revived during 1714)
and The Guardian, so short-lived that it survived barely eight months in 1713. It is worth stressing the
familiar and elegant prose (also called “middle style”) of these authors, especially Addison. José
Clavijo y Fajardo (1726-1806) figures among the great admirers of Addison and Steele; in fact from
1762 he founded and directed the journal El Pensador (The Thinker) in imitation of these English
authors. Mesonero Romanos was not indifferent to the work of Addison: he had in his library a
French translation of The Spectator dating from 1854; not only that: two quotations from the English
author served as titles for two articles by the Spanish author.
Larra owes more than is realised to the English writers. He himself draws attention to the
“philosophical writers who do not consider man in general […] but man in combination”14. Among
them he praises the “admirable depth and perspicacity of Addison in The Spectator”15, which “no-one
has managed to exceed”16 (“Panorama matritense. I”). Like Addison, Larra too sets out the main rules
of writing on customs and manners. We see other echoes of the English essayists in his commentary
on the difficulties which every writer of the genre in question comes up against, in the choice of
characters, in the identification of the principal evils afflicting Spain, in the criticism of pernicious
customs and in the remedies he proposes for the reform of the country.
Nevertheless, the French presence in Spanish costumbrismo is unquestionable. Mercier is spoken
of; no doubt because he is much more highly regarded today than another writer now consigned to
oblivion: Jouy. The French model has been denied by critics and historians such as Cánovas del
Castillo and Montesinos. Nevertheless, the research of Le Gentil, Hendrix, Berkowitz, Montgomery
and Correa Calderón tends in the opposite direction and shows the influence that Mercier and Jouy
certainly exercised in the above-mentioned Correo Literario y Mercantil and the Cartas Españolas. Not by
chance does Larra himself quote Jouy in several of his articles. He also refers to Dumas,
Chateaubriand, Ducange and Desnoyers. But among all the French, Larra chooses the “tireless
14
“escritores filosóficos que no consideraron ya al hombre en general […] sino al hombre en combinación”.
15
“admirable profundidad y perspicacia [de] Addison en El espectador [sic]”.
16
“nadie logró superar”.

6. 6
genius”17: Balzac. Larra praises Balzac, but he also inveighs against him because he lacks the didactic
spirit and the necessary delicacy not to show what should not be shown. He does not wish thereby
to diminish Balzac’s value, but to penetrate the spirit of Costumbrismo in the role it had to play in Spain.
It is not enough to paint reality: one must open a door to hope, present solutions, believe in the
future. It is no surprise that he launches to the attack against other French writers whose “frightful
tendencies”18 show that they are not “moved by good faith nor are they really writers of customs”19:
among others he names Eugène Sue, Alfred de Vigny, George Sand and Paul de Kock.
3. Literature on social life and customs in England
From the above it follows that literature of customs is not exclusive to Spain. Individual and
collective manifestations of it can also be found in other European countries. Individual writings on
customs found a home within the extraordinary development of the journalistic press, while collective
writings came together in anthologies. If the former spring from an “unorganised” or “independent”
literature of customs, the latter are the result of an “organised” literature of customs. The
phenomenon can be found in both England and France. It will be necessary, then, to enumerate
some writers from each country, in order next to approach the three great manifestations of
“organised” literature of customs in Europe: Heads of the People, Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (The
French Painted by Themselves) and Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (The Spanish Painted by
Themselves).
a) The Writers
Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) founded The Examiner (1808) with his brother, was later on the editor
of The Indicator (1819-1821), and went on to organise the creation of The Liberal (1822) with Shelley
and Byron in Italy, but the premature death of the former and the departure to Greece of the latter
meant that the journal came out only four times. Douglas William Jerrold (1803-1857) was even more
dedicated to the world of journalism. In 1841 he joined the staff of the weekly Punch, where he signed
his articles with the curious pseudonym “Q”. From 1852 until his death he was the editor of Lloyd’s
Weekly Newspaper. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) is known above all for his novelistic
work (Vanity Fair, 1847-8). He was Paris correspondent for the journal National Standard, which went
bankrupt in 1834, and of The Constitutional. From 1842 he contributed a great deal in the English press
with his reviews, comic sketches, parodies and satires, published mainly in Fraser’s Magazine and Punch.
Later, between 1860 and 1862 he was editor of The Cornhill Magazine, a monthly literary review which
is still published.
Thackeray’s contribution to literature of customs also includes The Book of Snobs. It is also
worth mentioning the lectures Thackeray gave during his stays in the United States: The English
Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (1851) and The Four Georges (1855). Both works are interesting: it is
very significant that Addison and Steele, models for Spanish costumbrismo, occupy a pre-eminent
position in The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century; on the other hand even though The Four
Georges does not deal with contemporary matters, its subtitle clearly indicates the line of English
literature of customs: “Sketches of Manners, Morals, Court and Town Life”.
17
“genio infatigable”.
18
“tendencia espantosa”.
19
“animados de buena fe ni son realmente escritores de costumbres”.

7. 7
b) “Heads of the People” (2 vol., 1840-1)
From the viewpoint of comparative literature, this publication is especially important in that it
met with a rapid and effective echo in other countries. It deals with a description of social life and
customs which is less spontaneous but much more structured, to the point of providing a real sketch
of each and every one of the levels of society. Rather than customs, it is better to speak of social types
or, as the writer of the prologue puts it, of “trade, calling or profession”. The authors of these volumes
are very different from one another. There are many anonymous, pseudonymous and little-known
authors. Some articles were written by Hunt, Thackeray and especially Jerrold; with them appear
other lesser-known authors: Samuel L. Blanchard (1804-1845), William Howitt (1792-1879), Edward
Howard (?1792-1841). This major work of English literature of customs centres its attention on the
description of social types, from the seamstress and the apothecary to the artist and the soldier: a
total of eighty-three types parade before our eyes. A multitude of characters thus appear represented
in these miscellaneous and many-sided sketches which are intended to be “popular portraits” of
English society of the period.
4. Peinture des mœurs in France
a) The Writers
Sébastien Mercier (1740-1814) evokes in his extremely well-known Tableaux de Paris (Pictures
of Paris) “that great mass of customs, be they crazy or reasonable”20, peculiar to the life of the great
metropolis. With his reflection, this precursor of the physiognomies of Balzac tries to puzzle out the
social philosophy of each one of the different trades.
Victor-Joseph-Étienne de Jouy (1764-1846), an army official, politician and finally journalist
from 1799 onwards, has already been the subject of remarks regarding his contribution to Spanish
costumbrismo. Here it may be useful to give a brief summary of his contribution to French peinture des
mœurs. Besides his fictional works can be found his extremely varied reflections on all kinds of social
themes and subjects. Published first in periodicals, they appeared later in various volumes: L’Hermite
de la Chaussée d’Antin (The Hermit of Antin Embankment, 1812-1814), L’Hermite en province (The
Hermit in the Provinces, 1813-1818), L’Hermite de la Guyane (The Hermit of Guyana, 1816), with
which he gained many followers and an unusual degree of authority. The first volume of L’Hermite de
la Chaussée d’Antin contains a brief but no less interesting “Avant-propos”. In it he speaks of the
reputation of writers of articles, of the widespread use of monograms, and of the offer made him to
publish in book form all his articles which had appeared in the Gazette de France, as well as those of
his predecessors: l’abbé Prévost, Marivaux, Steele, Johnson, Addison… Jouy takes this last author as
the model and pretext for his own work: “Addison painted the manners and usages of London at the
start of the eighteenth century; I am trying to give an idea of those of Paris, at the start of the
nineteenth”21. He plunges at once into the task of describing a great number of details and
personalities in Parisian life: the best man, the “tartuffe”, the nobility, the middle classes and even –
something unknown until then– the servants (“Mœurs de l’antichambre”, Manners of the anteroom).
Jouy himself explains the roots of one of his innovations: faced with the vast paintings of the world
that his predecessors sought, he devoted himself especially to the task of recounting something closer
to reality, what he himself saw: his figures are so to speak modelled on real life (“Révolutions des
20
“cet amas de coutumes folles ou raisonnables”.
21
“Addison a peint les mœurs et les usages de Londres, au commencement du dix-huitième siecle; j’essaie de donner
une idée de celles de Paris, au commencement du dix-neuvième”.

8. 8
modes”, Revolutions of fashion). Almost the entirety of the articles appear with titles taken from an
author either ancient (Horace, Virgil, Ovid…) or modern (La Bruyère, Montesquieu, Voltaire…) to
which are added a plethora of quotations from various French and foreign authors which serve as
points of reference to support one or other reflection by the author.
The palm of triumph of the French peinture des mœurs belongs by rights to Honoré de Balzac
(1799-1850). His anatomy of Paris had a precedent in Mercier, mentioned above, and would be
continued by Janin. But the most famous in the field of the peinture des mœurs are his “Physiognomies”,
suggested no doubt by the Physiologie du goût (Physiology of Taste, 1825) of Brillat-Savarin and the
Physiologie des passions ou nouvelle doctrine des sentiments moraux (Physiology of the Passions or New
Teaching on Moral Feelings, 1825) of baron Alibert. The word “physiology”, applied metaphorically
to any analysis of emotions, feelings, behaviour, etc., was all the rage in the first half of the 19th
century. This neologism was easily accepted, as an abundance of technical terms is one of the
tendencies of fashionable language, and fashion is part of the customs of a country. Balzac uses many
methods of study: “physiologies” (Physiologie du mariage, Physiology of Marriage, 1829), “studies”
(Étude de femme, Study of Woman, 1830), “treatises” (Traité de la vie élégante, Treatise on Elegant Life,
1830), “theories” (Théorie de la démarche, Theory of Salesmanship, 1833), “monographs” (Monographie
du rentier, Monograph on the Man of Private Means, 1840), to which could be added the “anatomies”
(Anatomie des corps enseignants, Anatomy of Teaching Staffs) and “pathologies” (Pathologie de la vie sociale,
Pathology of Social Life) that he never actually wrote.
In his far-sighted essay, Montesinos puts his finger on the spot when he remarks on the lack
of scientific rigor in this literary production (the natural sciences do not proceed by means of axioms,
theorems and corollaries, as mathematics does). It is clear that the physiological appearances
encourage a fascination with pseudo-science, while at the same time allowing a certain pedantic
charlatanism. “There is in the end a struggle between the concept of the Comedia humana, natural and
social history, and an intuition which is out of place in the scientific novel”22; the result is a “parody
of rigorous scientific method”23. This judgement of Montesinos is accurate, but only if we consider
it from the viewpoint of Spanish costumbrismo. The underlying question is the eminently fictional
character of French peinture des mœurs. In fact, the “costumbrist article” typical of Spanish costumbrismo
should never be confused either with the novel of customs of Honoré de Balzac or Eugène Sue, or
with the latter’s historical novel, nor with his roman-feuilleton, nor with the comedy of customs of
Eugène Scribe, nor with historiography or the simple literary record of contemporary historical facts.
From which we can deduce the need to specify what type of peinture des mœurs the critic is studying in
each case.
b) “Les Français peints par eux-mêmes” (5 vols., 1840-1842)
Jules-Gabriel Janin (1804-1874) wrote numerous tales and newspaper serials, contributed
heavily as a journalist to Le Figaro, La Quotidienne (The Daily) and Le Messager, and was from 1836
onwards an undisputed signature in the famous Journal des Débats. He is interesting here because he
was one of the great inspirers and promoters of this French encyclopaedia-anthology. In it a pleiad
of types covering every level of society passes before the eyes of the reader. They are short snippets
in which the extremely varied authors describe up to a hundred and seventy different types of people
in society. Given the breadth of the task, Janin can indeed describe this encyclopaedia as a genuine
22
“En el fondo hay como una pugna entre la concepción de la Comedia humana, historia natural y social, y la intuición
de que la novela científica es una incongruencia”.
23
“parodia de un riguroso método científico”.

9. 9
“record” in which are noted down each and every one of the shades of “the customs of every day”.
Just as in Heads of the People, a very large number of engravings make this collection an especially
attractive work.
As might be expected in this period, Spain too saw the publication of a work similar to the
above. More specifically, in each of the years 1843 and 1844 appeared volumes bearing the title Los
españoles pintados por sí mismos. The introduction refers to the collections produced in England, France
and Belgium and the need to gather together a series of writers who give an account of the different
“types” and “physiologies”. The contributors in this collection are in general very well-known writers;
it will suffice to give the examples of the duke of Rivas (1791-1865), Manuel Bretón de los Herreros
(1796-1873) and Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch (1806-1880). Los españoles pintados por sí mismos is
interesting because it is to a great extent linked to the purest Spanish costumbrismo. The writer of the
prologue rebels against the “spirit of foreignness” which enslaves Spain and makes it abandon
“everything from the clothing to the character of the pure Spain”24; the result is the loss “of the
original nationalhood”25. This defence of the “native” harks back to the romantic tendency of
Estébanez Calderón and Mesonero Romanos to recapture on paper what is disappearing in real life.
It is enough to name some of the titles which stress the picturesque Spain: “the bullfighter”, “the
chestnut seller”, “the priest’s housekeeper”, “the gypsy girl”… in fact, some of the types described
no longer exist in Spain: “the colonial”, “the water-seller”, “the chorizo seller”, “the beggar who shows
pious pictures”, “the sanctimonious fraud”, “the bandit” and “the partisan”.
5. Character and range of topics of English and French literature of manners
The various collections which were published in England and France were concerned to be
clearly identified as different. This identification comes about through differentiation from other
previously-existing functions: historiographers and moralists. In fact, no costumbrist collection had
the purpose of writing history or morals, nor did they even attempt to find a synthesis of the two.
“We have not undertaken to write the history of moralists”26, affirms Janin in the introduction to Les
Français peints par eux-mêmes. In a certain sense, writings on social life and customs maintain some
features in common with social anthropology. This is what can be deduced from Hunt’s articles on
his visits to a zoo, in his studies about genealogy or in so many others where he is occupied in curious
reflections about love, food or beauty. In this way, with the mentality of “scholars in human nature”,
the editors of Heads of the People announce that not only will their efforts be useful for the “antiquarian
of society”, but that “the mere idling reader become at once amused and instructed”. This playful
character does not in any way suggest a disdain for the nobler parts of the human mind: the work is
characterised by a “straightforward, uncompromising, and, it is hoped, humanising spirit”. This hope
guarantees the aforementioned collection to be, as the prologue of the second volume a year later
undertakes to record: “The one desire of all parties concerned in it has been, that there should be no
lack of generous sentiment, good-humoured endeavour, and cheerful appreciation of the socialities
and charities of life, in their attempts to delineate its characters”.
The variety of professions and types undertaken in these collections is enormous. One can
offer here among them a selection of the main subjects of study: the salons, social innovations, fashion,
slang and literature. In connection with the salons (also present in the work of Jouy), Bertaut
comments on the soirées that the French aristocracy organised in the second quarter of the 19th
24
“desde el vestido hasta el carácter puro español”.
25
“de la primitiva nacionalidad”.
26
“Nous ne sommes pas chargés de faire l’histoire des moralistes”.

10. 10
century. Among the descriptions of various salons figures that of Mme Ancelot, certainly one of the
most prestigious in Paris at the time. Many nobles, members of the Academy and men of letters such
as Stendhal met there. Precisely one of the articles of Les Français peints par eux-mêmes is signed by Mme
Ancelot.
Social and scientific innovations also have a place in European literature of manners. Painting
them, literature becomes even more conscious of its own modernity. In his article entitled “The
Inside of an Omnibus”, Hunt develops an original introspection of the figures of the various
passengers as they return home in the evening after work. The fact that he begins his article speaking
of the “elevation of society by this species of vehicle” gives a very clear idea of his consciousness of
describing something belonging entirely to the present (Men, Women and Books). The topic chosen
offered an appropriate field for the study of different social types and the celebration of modern
times. In fact, Hunt dedicates another article, closely related to this one, to the description of the
“Omnibus conductor” as a “careless-dressing, subordinate, predominant, miscellaneous, newly-
invented personage” (Heads of the People). This awareness of the modern character which is based on
the transient, forms an indispensable part of the poetics of literature of manners. The best proof of
this is that shortly afterward Europe was to include the dandy among its irreplaceable types and that
Baudelaire, after the appeals of Chateaubriand and Balzac, defined modernity in his article “Le peintre
de la vie moderne” (The Painter of Modern Life).
Certainly one of the most constantly-changing things of social life is fashion; thus Jouy had no
qualms about dedicating an extensive article to it (“Révolution des modes”). It is worth making a
brief reference to French fashion and more specifically to the review named after it: La Mode.
Founded by Émile de Girardin in collaboration with Latour-Mezeray in 1829, this review met with
such success that it very quickly eclipsed all the others. The most famous pens of the moment
contributed to it: Charles Nodier, Jules Janin, Eugène Sue, Georges Sand, Honoré de Balzac… As
with other journals, the illustrations could not be faulted. The fashion engravings signed by Mme
Delessert appeared in the first phase; later they were replaced by Gavarni’s famous lithographs. But
the attraction of La Mode did not end there: each issue retailed numerous echoes of the multiform
activities of the “petit monde”, as in sketches of banquets, soirées, descriptions of châteaux and
salons, etc.
Slang could not be ignored in literature of manners. Just two decades later, Victor Hugo was
to make a profound analysis of it in numerous passages of Les Misérables. And together with slang,
street pronunciation; another manifestation of vitality and mobility. The attempt to imitate
pronunciation graphically together with the opposition to academic language form an important
chapter of literature of manners about which a great deal remains to be said. Hunt undertakes this
task in Heads of the People when he attempts to transcribe phrases just as he hears them: “Now,
MA’AM, if you please; –my cattle’s a waiting–; bless’d if somme on us do n’t catch cold this here
shiny night”. Much the same appears in the article “The conductor” (Sebastián Herrero attempts
exactly the same thing in his article “la gitana” in Los españoles pintados por sí mismos). Moreau-
Christophe speaks of French slang in an extensive article about prisoners in jail. Speaking of its
general characteristics, the author proceeds to an enumeration of the “grades” of this “free-masonry
of crime”27, from the Middle Ages –“cagoux, orphelins, rifodés, mallards, marcandiers, malingreux, callots”,
etc.– to the present –“escarpes, sableurs, suageurs, grinchisseurs”, etc. After the detailed list he gives of
criminal types in France, he goes on to describe something that unites all of them: the language
27
“maçonnerie du crime”.

11. 11
specific to a certain part of society: “this language has been given, in the French vocabulary of people
in crime, the name of arguche or jar, or more commonly that of argot”28.
One type which attracts the attention of a large part of the writers on social life and customs
is precisely the writer. The case of the writer occupies a favoured position in Spanish costumbrismo.
Next to Larra, Mesonero Romanos is certainly one of those who has given the best impression of
the painful situation in Spain (“La literatura”). Much the same occurs in French peinture des mœurs. Jouy
describes the meagre gains of the miserable writer who writes in order to gain his daily bread
(“L’écrivain public”). Albéric Second tackles the subject in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes, where he
describes at his pleasure the progress of the “débutant littéraire”. The story of a young writer finishes
in disillusionment and mediocrity, a situation which drives home a biting criticism against the world
of publishing. A similar disenchantment can be seen in the analysis of the poet (“Le poète”), a job
and type which belongs to “a fairly numerous class with particular physiognomy and looks, and quite
visible without an observer’s microscope”29. Following romantic feeling, E. de la Bédollierre, the
author of this article, is convinced that true poets only existed in the past and that for the present one
can only speak of “meter-maniacs given to rhyming”30. To give a crowning proof of his statement,
the article-writer sets out to review the different types of poets that the republic of letters has to offer.
All of them without exception are journeymen of verse but not of the progress that the nation needs.
Finally, a long article signed by Janin gives an exhaustive approach to the type of the journalist (“Le
journaliste”). As one might expect, the author comes to the defence of his own job. The journalist is
presented as a hard-working and learned man and a defender of freedom. It matters little that some
are venal and liars: the great majority, states Janin, are honourable, hard-working and fair-minded
people who deserve the indulgence of the public.
6. Parallels in European literature of manners
The reading of the introductions to the various collections suggests a connivance of intentions.
This is what can be concluded from the words with which Heads of the People begins: “English faces,
and records of English character, make up the present volume”. Here appears the “registre” to which
“the grateful editor”31 refers in Les Français peints par eux-mêmes and the intention “to give an account”32
of the typical Spanish physiognomies in Los españoles pintados por sí mismos. The presentation of the
different types also needs a commentary. The writer of the English prologue makes clear his desire
to preserve the impressions of the present time, “to record its virtues, its follies, its moral
contradictions, and its crying wrongs”. In this connection it is worth recording that the writer of the
French introduction spoke of another form of impression, the daguerreotype, to describe in a precise
way what the various authors of the French volumes had carried out.
Within the field of reception, the English preface leaves no room for doubt when it describes
the good reception of the anthology. Although it does not give the figures involved, it seems that the
French writers were aware of what was being written on the other side of the Channel: “Nor was it
in England only that the purpose of the work was thus happily acknowledged. It has not only been
translated into French, but has formed the model of a national work for the essayists and wits of
28
“Cette langue a reçu, dans le vocabulaire français des gens de crime, le nom d’arguche ou de jar, et plus communément
celui d’argot”.
29
“une classe assez nombreuse ayant une physionomie et des allures particulières, et appréciable sans loupe à l’œil de
l’observation”.
30
“métromanes susceptibles de rimer”.
31
“l’éditeur reconnaissant”.
32
“de dar razón”.

12. 12
Paris. The «Heads of the People», of the numerous family of John Bull, are to be seen gazing from
the windows of French shopkeepers”. If we can give full credence to this English Preface written in
October 1840, we must conclude that the compiler of Les Français peints par eux-mêmes (whose first
volume also appeared in 1840) was in contact with the editor of Heads of the People. As regards Los
españoles pintados por sí mismos, the reference to the anthologies is clear as the writer of the prologue
states that he has in his hands “English, French and Belgians painted by themselves”33.
The relationship that exists between some types described is striking; especially in the English
and French collections. The Spanish case is different for reasons mentioned above. Certainly a
number of social types are repeated: “The public writer”, “the literary novice”, “the poet” or “the
convict”. Nevertheless, the objective of Los españoles pintados por sí mismos is not to produce a systematic
sample of all the social types. On the contrary, there is an abundance of the simpler “types” and
“physiognomies” which could only be found in Spain: those whom social upheavals had reduced to
types on the path to extinction.
It is nevertheless possible to trace a common link relating all the types pictured: all are marked
by the inexorable passage of time. Spanish costumbrismo, in its attempt to describe a reality already past
and transitory, produces an outline of something which was but which is ceasing to be (indigenous
tendency of Mesonero Romanos, Estébanez Calderón and Bretón de los Herreros) or which ought
to disappear (Larra’s criticism of the congenital evils of Spain). English and French literature of
manners, for its part, traces the outline of something which is but will soon cease to be; these writers
are aware of the modern and ephemeral character of the reality placed before their eyes and wish to
record it for their contemporaries and for posterity.
7. Conclusion
The reading of the costumbrist works of Europe invites us not (as some critics have suggested)
to a redefinition of the novel, but to a rapprochement with it and a rediscovery of other genres which
would, years later, acquire an unquestioned development: one thinks of the essay or the short story.
Not without reason does Ucelay state that the framework of literature of customs represents in both
its form and its content a happy fusion of essay and short story.
At the same time, the costumbrists’ insistence on avoiding any possible confusion with history
and morals provides new lights to better understand other historical and moral works of their period.
Their interest in reproducing pictures of social types and customs allows us to capture the pictorial
potential of literature in all its depth. In this sense, the critic must weigh up what is the true balance
between the social, political and economic juncture as well as the growing importance of the people
and the press as a favoured vehicle of writings on social life and customs.
Finally, the conjunction of all the elements which are involved in European literature of
manners of the 19th century can be seen among others, as an indispensable way for the interpretation
of the beginnings of modernity in the Romantic period.
Bibliography
Heads of the People: or, Portraits of the English. Drawn by Kenny Meadows. With original essays by distinguished writers,
London: Robert Tyas, 1840-1841, 2 vol.
Les Français peints par eux-mêmes [Subtitle for vols IV and V: Encyclopédie morale du dix-neuvième siècle], Paris: L.
Curmer, 1840-1842, 5 vol.
Los españoles pintados por sí mismos, Madrid: i. Boix, 1843-1844, 2 vol.
33
“ingleses, franceses y belgas pintados por sí mismos”.

13. 13
BERTAUT, Jules. 1947. L’Époque romantique, Paris: Jules Tallandier.
CÁNOVAS DEL CASTILLO, Antonio. 1883. “El Solitario” y su tiempo. Biografía de D. Serafín Estébanez Calderón
y crítica de sus obras, Madrid: A. Pérez Dubrull, 2 vol.
CALDERA, Ermanno. 1996. “La vocación costumbrista de los románticos”, Romanticismo 6, (Proceedings of
the 6th Conference. Naples, 27-30 March 1996), Berta Pallares, Pedro Peira and Jesús Sánchez Lobato
eds, Madrid: Universidad Complutense, p. 45-52.
CORREA CALDERÓN, Evaristo (ed.). 1950-1. Costumbristas españoles: vol. 1 (siglos XVII, XVII y XIX), vol. 2 (siglos
XIX y XX), Madrid: Aguilar.
DE TOMASSO, Vincenzo. 1983. “Il «costumbrismo» spagnolo”, Cultura e Scuola, 22 (87), July-Sept., p. 50-60.
ESCOBAR, José. 1988. “La mímesis costumbrista”, Romance Quarterly, 35 (3), Aug., p. 261-270.
– 1996. “Costumbrismo y ambiente literario en Los españoles pintados por sí mismos”, Romanticismo 6, (Proceedings
of the 6th Conference. Naples, 27-30 March 1996), Berta Pallares, Pedro Peira and Jesús Sánchez Lobato
eds, Madrid: Universidad Complutense, p. 21-27.
ESTÉBANEZ CALDERÓN, Serafín, Escenas andaluzas, ed. Alberto González Troyano, Madrid: Cátedra, series
“Letras Hispánicas”, 1985.
FORTASSIER, Rose. 1988. Les Écrivains français et la mode de Balzac à nos jours, Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, series “Écriture”.
GULLÓN, Ricardo (ed.). 1993. Diccionario de literatura española e hispanoamericana, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2
vols.
HARDEN, Edgar F. 1985. Thackeray’s “English Humourists” and “Four Georges”, Newark: University of Delaware
Press & London and Toronto: Associated University Presses.
HERRERO, Javier. 1978. “El naranjo romántico: esencia del costumbrismo”, Hispanic Review, 46 (1), Winter,
p. 343-354.
HUNT, (James Henry) Leigh. 1943. Men, Women and Books. A Selection of Sketches, Essays, and Critical Memoirs from
his Uncollected Prose Writings, London: T.W. Laurie.
JOUY, Victor-Joseph Étienne de. 1812-1814. L’Hermite de la Chaussée d’Antin, ou Observations sur les mœurs et les
usages parisiens au commencement du XIXe
siècle, Paris: Pillet, 4 vol. (vol. 3, 1813, is described as “deuxième
édition” and vol. 4, 1814, “seconde édition”). The five vols. de Paris: Pillet, 1815, are described as
“cinquième édition”.
LARRA, Mariano José de. 1969 (1964). Artículos, ed. Carlos Seco Serrano, Barcelona: Planeta.
LORENZO-RIVERO, Luis. 1986. Estudios literarios sobre Mariano J. de Larra, Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas.
MARÚN, Gioconda. 1983. Orígenes del costumbrismo ético-social. Addison y Steele: antecedentes del artículo costumbrista
español y argentino, Miami: Ediciones Universal.
MESONERO ROMANOS, Ramón de. 1983. Escenas matritenses por El Curioso parlante (D. Ramón de Mesonero
Romanos), 4th
edition corrected and expanded by the author, and illustrated by engravings, Madrid: Ignacio Boix,
1845; reed. Madrid: Méndez Editores.
– 1986 (1942). Escenas matritenses, ed. and intr. Leonardo Romero Tobar, selection and prologue by Ramón
Gómez de la Serna, Madrid: Espasa Calpe, series “Austral”.
MONTESINOS, José F., Costumbrismo y novela. Ensayo sobre el redescubrimiento de la realidad española, Berkeley &
Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1960.
NODIER, Charles. 1993. L’Amateur des livres, ed. Jean-Luc Steinmetz, Paris: Le Castor Astral (1st ed. in Les
Français peints par eux-mêmes, 1841, t. III, p. 201-209).
OUSBY, Ian. 1995. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14. 14
QUIRK, Ronald J. 1992. Serafín Estébanez Calderón. Bajo la corteza de su obra, New York: Peter Lang, series II,
“Romance Languages and Literature”, vol. 187.
THACKERAY, William Makepeace. 1993. The Book of Snobs, intr. Jonathan Keates, London: Robin Clark.
UCELAY DA CAL, Margarita. 1951. Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (1843-1844). Estudio de un género
costumbrista, México (D.F.): Colegio de México-Fondo de Cultura Económica.
VARELA, José Luis. 1970. El costumbrismo romántico. Introducción, notas y selección, Madrid: E.M.E.S.A.