Pedro Antonio de Alarcón y Ariza (10 March 1833 – 19 July 1891) was a nineteenth-century Spanish novelist, known best for his novel El sombrero de tres picos (1874), an adaptation of popular traditions which provides a description of village life in Alarcón's native region of Andalusia.

It was the basis for Hugo Wolf's opera Der Corregidor (1897); for Riccardo Zandonai's opera La farsa amorosa (1933); and Manuel de Falla's ballet The Three-Cornered Hat (1919).

Alarcón wrote another popular short novel, El capitán Veneno [es] ('Captain Poison', 1881).

One of these novels, El escándalo ('The Scandal', 1875), became noted for its keen psychological insights.

He gained his first literary recognition with Diary of a Witness to the African War [es], a patriotic account of the campaign.