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1 To my dear friend don Ramón Rodríguez correa i dedicAte this Novel to you as the matador dedicates his performance before killing the bull. Neither he nor I knows whether what we dedicate will turn out well or ill. The public and you must decide and pass judgment, when the novel is printed in its entirety, as soon as it is written.1 At all events, even though the novel may prove to be terrible, since the intention with which I dedicate it to you is good, you will always have to be grateful, although you may not have to applaud. It is true that, as I am indebted to you for so much friendship for so many years, I am scarcely beginning to repay you with this token of affection, so that, all things considered, you do not have to thank me for the dedication. I will not say to the public, because it would detract from the appeal of my work, that everything I am going to relate in it will be invented. Villabermeja is a true utopia: its heroes never existed . Still, it will not hurt for you to make this known, inasmuch as I shape my imaginary creations, as I understand that all novelists do, with real materials, taking bits and pieces of my recollections from here and there, and it would distress me were some mindreader of a critic to assert that I paint portraits.2 Well do I know that the river of oblivion will soon carry off this novel in its current, along with a host of insipid compositions , written in a rush to fill the columns of newspapers. Consequently , there is no fear that within a few centuries scholars will be trying to ascertain who were all the characters of my story, as they imagine that they have ascertained today who was Sancho, who Don Quijote, who the gray-haired man, and which Don Quijote ’s village, taking for granted that it was Argamasilla de Alba; 1. The illusions of doctor faustino was published serially in the Revista de Espa- ña, in thirteen installments, between October 1874 and June 1875. It then appeared in book form in 1875, shortly after the final installment. 2. Prophetic words, as Valera will defend himself against this very kind of thing in the Afterword to the 1879 edition of the novel. 2 AUTHOR’S DE DICATION but what is not to occur within a few centuries could well occur immediately, and it is against this that I implore you to work, affirming , as it is the truth, that the poor offerings of my fantasy lack original models in the world. Welcome them in your affectionate arms and defend them from the abuse to which they are going to be exposed, if, as I suspect , they are born frail and ugly. ...

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