Isabel-Clara Simó’s Júlia: a romance or a novel about «la Revolució del Petroli»?

A vindication of Isabel-Clara Simó’s first novel, usually read as a romantic story with a generic historical background. In complete opposition, the article shows it to be a social, political and feminist novel based on some very specific facts, the incidents in Alcoi in 1873 known as the Petroleum Revolution (“la Revolució del Petroli”). The author. did have recourse to some melodramatic elements with the aim of making it accessible to the readers, but she also made use of Flaubertian techniques and she introduced references to contemporary figures such as Maria Aurèlia Capmany.