Many authors have attempted to define and theorise about romance novels, but none have been able to precisely explain the origins of the name "novela rosa" (literally, pink novel) they are given in Spanish. Despite a thorough search, it has not been possible to pin down the exact moment when the term "pink" was first used to define a type of romantic narrative, of mediocre literary quality (according to the experts) and mainly aimed at a female readership. However, although it did not give its name to a literary genre, the "La Novela Rosa" collection undoubtedly helped fix it in place. The "La Novela Rosa" collection may have lent its name to a genre which over time lost its literary quality, such that the name took on a pejorative tone. However, in its first catalogue the collection included a series of authors were included who in many cases had little or nothing to do with what we understand by romantic fiction today. This work includes a study of the "La Novela Rosa" collection of novels, focusing on the years before the Civil War, from 1924 to 1936, a period in which the collection grew healthily and became extremely popular. However, it is not a work on the literary genre of romance fiction as a whole, which also achieved great popularity.
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