The three decades that elapsed from the beginning of the Ten Years’ War until the final abolition of Spanish sovereignty on the island were the most fruitful in the narrative genre. In addition to Cecilia Valdés—chronologically placed in this period but included in the section dedicated to Cirilo Villaverde—Adis Barrio, in his “History of Cuban Literature,” points out the most important works: “Mozart Rehearsing His Requiem” by Tristán de Jesús Medina; “My Uncle the Clerk” by Ramón Meza; “Fatal Friendship or Lucía Jérez” by José Martí; “Leonela” by Nicolás Heredia; and “In Search of the Link: A Story of Monkeys” by Francisco Calcagno.

In general, Cuban novels developed a retrospective perspective on island reality, with an intent not only descriptive but also critical. However, they failed to free themselves from subjectivism or from the authors’ own historical and social conditioning. Romanticism prevailed in the shaping of plots, with elements of critical realism and naturalistic overtones in some works that did not focus on social criticism.

Among the somewhat lesser works, the aforementioned author mentions: “The Black Dahlia of the Guines Cemetery” by Valentín Catalé; “Autumn Sun” by Miguel Garmendía and “Adoration” by Álvaro de la Iglesia; “The Footstool of Fortune” by Teodoro Guerrero; “Irene Albar” by Eusebio Guiteras; and “Angela” and “The Marquis of Sunflower” by Félix Puig y Cárdenas. These are part of the Romantic canon, but with foreign recurrences in the plots, which refer mainly to Europe. The female characters are endowed with the physiognomy and ethos typical of this region of the world.

In “The Footstool of Fortune,” published in 1876, the events take place in Spain, and in general, reveal a certain backward, if not reactionary, attitude adopted by many sectors of the country after the failure of the Ten Years’ War and in the face of new conspiratorial attempts.

During this period, the Cuban novel suffered from some foreign and untimely affectations, especially following the war’s failure. This perhaps denotes an escapist attitude toward the impossibility of fully realizing the national identity. Likewise, Romanticism, due to the hackneyed nature of many of its clichés, had become obsolete, and the emergence of a different sensibility was needed.