The Pérez Galdós museum in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria features a portrait of the writer by Joaquín Sorolla.

Pérez Galdós was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912,[4] but his opposition to religious authorities led him to be boycotted by conservative sectors of Spanish society, and traditionalist Catholics, who did not recognize his literary merit.

[6] At the beginning of the 20th century he joined the Republican Party and was elected deputy to the Madrid cortes for the Conjunción Republicano Socialista in the legislatures of 1907 and 1910.

He became acquainted with life in Madrid and witnessed the political and historical events of the time, which were reflected in his journalistic works and in his early novels, The Golden Fountain Café (La Fontana de oro) (1870) and El audaz (1871).

[7] Pérez Galdós led a comfortable life, living first with two of his sisters and then at the home of his nephew, José Hurtado de Mendoza.

In the afternoons he read in Spanish, English or French; he preferred the classics, including Shakespeare, Dickens, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Euripides.

In winter he would wear a white woollen scarf wrapped around his neck, with a half-smoked cigar in his hand and, when seated, his German shepherd dog beside him.

In 1870, Pérez Galdós was appointed editor of La Revista de España and began to express his opinions on a wide range of topics from history and culture, to politics and literature.

Critical reaction was slow, but this was eventually hailed as the beginning of a new phase in Spanish fiction, and was highly praised for its literary quality as well as for its social and moral purpose.

The Mexican-Spanish writer Max Aub said: "If all the historical material of those years (19th century) were lost, saving the work of Galdós, it would not matter.

He used careful research to write these stories, and to achieve balance and wider perspectives, Pérez Galdós often sought out survivors and eyewitnesses to the actual events – such as an old man who had been a cabin boy aboard the ship Santísima Trinidad at Trafalgar, who became the central figure of that book.

Pérez Galdós was often critical of the official versions of the events he described, and often ran into problems with the Catholic Church, then a dominant force in Spanish cultural life.

The descriptions of the various districts and low-life characters that he encountered in Madrid, particularly in Fortunata y Jacinta, are similar to the approaches of Dickens and the French Realist novelists such as Balzac.

Galdós was also inspired by Émile Zola and naturalism in which writers strove to show how their characters were forged by the interaction of heredity, environment and social conditions.

This set of influences is perhaps clearest in Lo prohibido (1884–85),[10] which is also noteworthy for being told in the first person by an unreliable narrator who dies during the course of the work.

Pérez Galdós was also influenced by philosopher Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, made famous in Spain via the educationalist Francisco Giner de los Ríos.

However, the play did not receive universal critical acclaim due to the realism of the dialogue which did not accord with the theatrical norms of the time; and the setting of a scene in the boudoir of a courtesan, and the un-Spanish attitude towards a wife's adultery.

In 1909, together with Pablo Iglesias, he led the Republican–Socialist Conjunction, although Pérez Galdós, who "did not feel himself a politician", soon withdrew from the struggles "for the minutes and the farce" and turned his already diminished energies to the novel and the theater.

This coincided with the promotion, in March 1914, of a national board tribute to Pérez Galdós, made up of personalities as Eduardo Dato (head of the Government), the banker Gustavo Bauer (Rothschild's representative in Spain), Melquiades Álvarez, head of the reformists and the Duke of Alba, as well as writers including Jacinto Benavente, Mariano de Cavia and José de Echegaray.

[13] In the literary aspect, his admiration for the work of Tolstoy is reflected in a certain spiritualism in his last writings and, in the same Russian line, he could not conceal a certain pessimism for the destiny of Spain, as can be perceived in the pages of one of his last National Episodes, Cánovas (1912): The two parties that have agreed to take turns peacefully in power are two herds of men who aspire only to graze on the budget.

Shortly before his death, a statue in his honour was unveiled in the Parque del Buen Retiro, the most popular park in Madrid, financed solely by public donations.

Early Novels Novelas Españolas Contemporáneas Later Novels Episodios Nacionales Plays Short stories Miscellaneous His novels have yielded many cinematic adaptations: Beauty in Chains (Doña Perfecta) was directed by Elsie Jane Wilson in 1918; Viridiana (1961), by Luis Buñuel, is based upon Halma; Buñuel also filmed the adaptations Nazarín (1959) and Tristana (1970); La Duda was filmed in 1972 by Rafael Gil; El Abuelo (1998) (The Grandfather), by José Luis Garci, was internationally released a year later; it had previously been adapted as the Argentine film El Abuelo (1954).