The novel La Lucha por la vida (The Struggle for Life, 1904), by Pío Baroja, a Basque novelist and one of the Generation of '98, concerns the living conditions of the poor in Madrid.

Don Quixote (Vol. 1, 1605; Vol. 2, 1615), by Miguel de Cervantes, is considered to be the first great modern Spanish novel. Don Quixote is a country gentleman who recruits his faithful servant Sancho Panza to "sally forth" into the world and seek adventures requiring knightly chivalry. Don Quixote is in fact a deluded older man who sees a windmill as a giant, a roadside inn as a castle, and a slovenly peasant girl as a beautiful princess.

One of the strongest novels by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, one of the Generation of '98, is Sangre y arena (Blood and Sand, 1908), the story of a bullfighter victimized...