Spanish prose began to develop under the auspices of the Castilian writer Alfonso X el Sabio during the 13th century. Though he wrote primarily histories and law books, his prose writing influenced one of the first short story writers of the region, his nephew Don Juan Manuel. Published in 1335, Juan Manuel's "El Conde Lucanor" was one of Spain's first fictional prose works in Castilian Spanish. This novel is structured as a frame story, and is made up of four parts and 51 self-contained short stories that form the overall narrative of the novel.
The invention of the printing press during the Renaissance era greatly increased the number of novels and short stories being printed and written in Spanish and Spanish dialects. During this time period, one of the most famous books of Spanish literature was written, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. Don Quixote was originally published in two volumes in 1605 and 1615. The first volume's structure was characterized by Don Quixote's first and second quests. The second volume, originally published as a sequel though now printed as part of the novel, is less structured than the first volume and contains more philosophical explorations.
After the Renaissance Spanish literature was dominated by poetry, plays and political essays until the mid-19th century with the emergence of realism and naturalism. The importance of the novel predominated this era, as major themes included the realistic exploration of the human psyche. The structure of novels of this era are generally split up into segments that were serialized in newspapers and other literary publications. Pepita Jiménez, an important work by author Juan Valera is written in the epistolary form, meaning that the structure is determined by the writings of a series of documents.
Modernist literature was a period of literary experimentation in Spain during the late 19th and early 20th century. Writers of this period put aside standard literary conventions and experimented with form, structure an themes. For instance, The Tree of Knowledge, an influential novel of the time written by Pio Baroja, is divided into two symmetrical parts that are separated by a philosophical discourse between the main character, medicine student Andrés Hurtado and his uncle. Mist, written by Miguel de Unamuno, is one example of the modernist, nivela, a style of novel that was written in a fast-paced way without much realism or detail.