Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Like waves ebbing and flowing, love surges and subsides among four friends who share a vacation at the house on the beach. As they navigate the seas of love and friendship, jealousy and unfaithfulness, Elena, Marta, Eduardo, and Rafael are swept up in the opposing currents that flow between security and personal freedom, marriage and sexual liberation, family and work, provincial and city life, and traditional and unconventional gender roles.

This deceptively simple novel, published in Mexico in 1966 as La casa en la playa and here translated into English for the first time, is an important work by one of Mexico's, and indeed Latin America's, major writers of the twentieth century. Juan Garcia Ponce helped Mexican arts and letters break out of the ossified styles and themes of the post-Revolutionary "Mexican School" with works that explore the conflict between individual desire and the demands of family and work. Written at a turning point in his career, The House on the Beach foreshadows his embrace of the erotic encounter as a means of undermining rigid, socially constructed personal identity. It supports feminist views and probes deeply into the contradictions, backwardness, and progress of modern Mexican society.

Se recogen en este libro casi dos docenas de ensayos sobre diversos temas de contenido humanistico. En conjunto, constituye una breve coleccion muy apropiada para el lector que desee iniciarse en el conocimiento de las disciplinas humanisticas. Como introduccion al estudio de las humanidades, esta compilacion resulta de lo mas atractivo y la tematica es, de por si, muy adecuada para el lector interesado en el conocimiento del hombre. En el libro se entrecruzan la experiencia vital del autor y la ensenanza libresca, en un proceso - que ya se manifiesta en el titulo mismo del volumen - segun el cual esa experiencia vivida viene a derivar en teoria. La experiencia vital, ascendida de categoria, resulta ser la teoria. Esta proviene directamente de la previa vivencia, verificandose el viejo principio escolastico del nada hay en el entendimiento que no haya estado previamente en la sensacion. Lo que, trasladado a una version mas actualizada, podriamos entender como "nada hay en la teoria que no este basado en una experiencia previa." En resumen, estamos ante un excelente metodo de iniciacion al humanismo. En ello radica el valor propedeutico de este libro.