On 28 August 1888, José Maria Eça de Queirós was transferred from the Portuguese consulate in Bristol to the consulate in Paris. When he arrived to take up his new post, the ‘reception’ he was accorded by the Viscountess of Faria, ‘a sort of virago, of thepotichekind, with a thick, hoarse voice and awe-inspiring gestures’,¹ is well known. His description of this remarkable episode in a letter to one of his friends, Joaquim Pedro Oliveira Martins, on 19 September is highly amusing and certainly does not lack the exaggeration of caricature:

She made a frightful scene, screaming and...

An analysis of the document reproduced above shows that ‘Monsieur de Quieroz’ (sic) received an invoice issued on 1 April 1892 from the Librairie Galignani for his subscription to a number of English newspapers, reviews and magazines.

He had certainly gone to the right place. Established in 1801 by Giovanni Antonio Galignani and originally located at nº 18 rue Vivienne, very close to the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Librairie Galignani, ‘the first English bookshop established on the Continent’ as the plaque next to the door now informs us, played an important role in the spread of English culture in France throughout...

Eça had long dreamt of creating a review. Even in his youth he had enthusiasti cally expressed such a desire in a letter written to Emídio Garcia in 1867/68 (Correspondência, I, pp. 39–40). Unfortunately, the ambitious plan that he had so much hoped to realize did not come to fruition because Anselmo de Andrade, with whom he was to share the project, departed for Beja. The idea, however, did not die with the passing of time.

In 1888, while he was still consul in Bristol but already living in London, Eça began to plan theRevista de Portugal. This...

When Eça de Queirós began publishing the BrazilianSuplemento Literário da Gazeta de Notíciason 18 January 1892, his name had already been connected to the Rio de Janeiro-based newspaper for some time. His collaboration with theGazeta de Notíciashad begun on 24 July 1880 with his article ‘Cartas de Paris e Londres’ and his contributions included a variety of literary genres: the so-called ‘Cartas de inglaterra’ and ‘Crónicas de Londres’,A Relíquia, the final chapter ofOs Maias, some of Fradique Mendes’ letters and his ‘Notas e Recordações ‘(‘Remembrances and Notes’).¹

As theGazetasays, when it announces...

Even though theRevista de Portugalproject had failed and publication of theSuplemento Literário da Gazeta de Notíciashad been short-lived, Eça still did not abandon the idea of designing and editing another periodical, this time in partnership with Alberto de Oliveira.

To write about a magazine of which so little is known, of which only the draft outlines of a few issues exist and which never actually materialized is an interesting exercise. There are only eight known letters among Eça’s correspondence on the subject, most of which were written to Alberto de oliveira. Although useful, as they provide...

Eça de Queirós’s work – mainly his novels – has traditionally been (and to a large extent still is) studied within the context of French literature and culture, although he lived in England for fourteen years (from 1874 to 1888). Many critics have traced the influence ofMadame BovaryorL’Éducation SentimentaleinOs Maias, for instance, and as soon as he publishedO Crime do Padre Amarohe was accused of plagiarizingLa Faute de l’Abbé Mouret.

Although Eça knew Heine and poe, among others, from French translations, his early masters were undoubtedly French – Proudhon, Taine, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Hugo – as...