Pereda, José María De

(hōsā´ märē´ä dā pārā´thä), 1833–1906, Spanish novelist. His stories are laid chiefly in his native Santander. An aristocrat by birth, he wrote sympathetically of the peasants but satirically of the bourgeoisie. His colorful descriptions of local landscape are preeminent in his Escenas montañesas [mountain scenes] (1864), a collection of stories and episodes, and El sabor de la tierruca [the taste of the earth] (1881). Sotileza (1884) and Peñas arriba (1894), among his best-known novels, are vivid regional works.