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Nineteenth century Spanish fiction often includes secondary characters and subplots relative to its colonial past. My research examines these elements as evidence of a conflicted response to the early loss of the American colonies and Spain as its changed status as a nation. They evidence a deep anxiety about the end of empire and unwillingness to address the cultural, political and economic relations between colony and metropolis. The narratives of Jose Maria de Pereda reveal a process of sublimation by which an apparent focus on regional society gives way to a critique of diminished status for Spain as a nation and postcolonial entity. By tracing this ghost of colonial history in the fiction of Pereda, contextualizing it in terms of Spanish history, postcolonial theory and contemporary narratives, my book reveals the nature and trajectory of this reworking of national identity to provide an original and valuable approach to this period of Spanish literary and cultural history.