'The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne': James Francis Whiston (1945-2017)

This article provides a detailed assessment of the life of an influential scholar of modern Spanish literature and culture. James Whiston’s entire career is documented, first as a student, then as lecturer and professor in Spanish Studies at Trinity College, Dublin. Also recorded is his role as a General Editor of the Bulletin of Spanish Studies at a key period in its development. Whiston’s publications on Galdós and the nineteenth-century novel and on Machado and the Spanish Civil War——his two principal fields of research—are discussed in turn, taking into account other scholars’ opinions of his work. Whiston’s most enduring output is judged to be his monograph on Fortunata y Jacinta, together with his definitive edition of the same monumental work. Academics concerned to understand Galdós and prose-fiction in nineteenth-century Spain and beyond will consult Whiston’s publications with benefit for years to come. His other books include the first full-length study of Antonio Machado’s Writings and the Spanish Civil War (1996), in which all the important topics in Machado’s Civil War writings are addressed and explained. In Spain’s Civil War Whiston found a source of valuable insight into the relationship between the creative author and the imperatives of the time. His publications on Machado do much to enhance our knowledge of events as they were being experienced and commented upon in Spain and, more broadly, in Europe during a prolonged period of military conflict and civil upheaval which, nevertheless, became intensely productive of literary achievement