This article analyses some of the most representative histories of Spanish literature written during the nineteenth century (both in and outside Spain), to show the different definitions they offer of the limits of Spain and Spanishness: the chronological, linguistic and geographical limits set to the Spanish nation and literature, but also the inner limits of Spanishness; the conceptual, aesthetical or ideological limits that divide Spanish literature from not-so-Spanish literature, even within the external limits previously defined. I will also study, however briefly, how these configurations of the limits of Spanishness affect the selection and assessment of literary works