Clarin lived in León and Guadalajara in his childhood, then he moved to Oviedo in 1865. There he studied "Bachillerato" (high school) and he started his law career. He lived in Madrid from 1871 to 1878, where he started his career as a journalist and he graduated with the thesis "El Derecho y la Moralidad" ("Law and Morality"). He taught in Zaragoza from 1882 to 1883. In 1883 he returned to Oviedo to take up a position as teacher of Roman law.