"Gies' The Theatre in Nineteenth-Century Spain is the most comprehensive study to date of the Spanish 19th-century stage and offers the reader a rewarding glimpse into a significant art form of a major Western European country. Within the pages of this seminal text, Gies integrates the numerous and often contradictory social and artistic currents of a prolific century that produced more than 10,000 dramatic works in Spain....The book will undoubtedly become a seminal work in any undergraduate or graduate university course on Spanish drama....David Gies' perceptive study of Spain's 19th-century theatre brings alive once again the magic of opening nights, unforgettable performances, prominent playwrights, and even the resounding cheers of bravo, which we may also render to this book." Daniel S. Whitaker, The Virginia Quarterly Review

• 1. Spanish theatre in the nineteenth century (an overview); 2. Theatre and dictatorship: from Napoleon to Fernando VII; 3. Romanticism and beyond (1834–1849); 4. The theatre at mid-century; 5. 'This woman is quite a man!': women and the theatre (1838–1900); 6. High comedy, and low; 7. Conflicting visions: neo-Romanticism, ridicule and realism; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.