This book explores the change that occurred in the writings of Spanish novelist Benito Perez Galdos when he entered his segunda manera in 1881 with the publication of La desberedada, his first contemporary novel. By studying his novels in light of how their stories are told, Linda Willem shows that La desberedada marks the beginning of a more sophisticated and varied mode of narrative presentation in Galdos's work. Through close readings of his first seven contemporary novels, Willem shows how the affective response associated with various narrative devices plays a role in the rhetorical strategies of each text.