A bestseller in its time with four published editions, Blanca Sol (1889) was a highly controversial novel when it first appeared. Thought by many to be a roman a clef about a well-known woman of Lima"s high society, Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera (1842-1909) distanced herself from this criticism by making substantial changes for the second edition and by including a prologue stating her intentions of writing a realist novel, a social novel, inspired in reality, but not a copy. With a well earned reputation as an outspoken feminist writer and contributor to cultural journals in Peru and abroad with essays such as «La influencia de la mujer en la civilizacion» and «Necesidad de una industria para la mujer», Mercedes Cabello explores in Blanca Sol the consequences of social climbing, adulation, vanity, and excessive narcissistic infatuation, while also criticizing loveless marriage. The eponymous protagonist wryly declares in this regard, «marriage without love was nothing but...