He wrote 77 novels and still couldn't pay his bills. Galdós spent decades chronicling every layer of Spanish society — aristocrats, shopkeepers, beggars, priests — in prose so vivid that Madrid felt like a character itself. His *Episodios Nacionales* alone ran to 46 volumes. But he was terrible with money, gave it away constantly, and died nearly blind and broke. Spain gave him a state funeral anyway. They knew what they'd lost.
January 4, 1920
106 years ago
What Else Happened on January 4
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