"This book is a study of the relationship between change and creativity in the novel Fortunata y Jacinta, published in 1887 by Benito Perez Galdos, acknowledged in the field of Spanish letters as second only in importance to Cervantes. The basis of the study is the analysis of the different parts of the manuscript as a "palimpsest" or layering of texts produced in successive stages to create a better version than the last." The MS consists of a first Alpha (A) draft of 832 pages, in Galdos's numbering, the main Beta (B) manuscript, of 3095 pages, and other discarded pages, written between the A and the B versions (AB: about 250 pages), the latter at times containing a sequence where a scene or a substantial part of a scene was then further reworked at the B stage. The critical process engaged in here is intuitively psychological, using the tools of practical criticism and of close verbal analysis.