Eca de Queiroz's sharply satirical work aimed to expose the hypocrisies of his age. In The Mandarin his lascivious anti-heroes Teodoro and Teodorico, are dragged from their narrow Lisbon lives into exotic encounters with Chinese mandarins, the Devil (in the guise of a dark-suited civil servant)and Jesus Christ Himself. This short novel is accompanied by the short stories Jose Matias, The Hanged Man and The Idiosyncrasies of a young blonde woman.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Two friends are kidnapped by several masked men, who, to judge by their manners and their accent are men of the best society. One of the friends is a doctor, and the masked men say that they need him to assist a noblewoman, who is about to give birth. When they reach the house, they find no such noblewoman, only a dead man. Another man, known only as A.M.C., bursts in at this point and declares that the man died of opium poisoning. The doctor writes a letter to a newspaper editor, setting out the facts as he knows them. These facts are rebutted first by a friend of A.M.C. and then by the first masked man, who explains the whole story... Eca de Queiroz wrote this spoof 'mystery' with his friend Ramalho Ortigao, publishing it in the form of a series of anonymous letters in the Diario de Noticias between 24 July and 27 September 1870. Many readers believed the letters to be genuine. As the book progresses, one sees Eca gradually getting into his stride as a novelist, equally at home with humour and with human drama. Recently turned into a major Portuguese feature film it will delight avid Eca fans and lovers of mysteries."

The explosive and highly controversial new film of The Crime of Father Amaro is set in Mexico, in a material and religious culture of this century not unlike the provincial Portugal where, as a young man, de Queiros was despatched to train for the consular service. The Crime of Father Amaro is set in Leiria, a provincial cathedral city, in which the hypocrisies of churchmen were not far to seek. Father Amaro, a young man like himself, with a priestly rather than a diplomatic vocation, falls into a relationship with a woman, and their tragic story unfolds with a harsh relentlessness. The situation of women, tightly swaddled in conformities yet fevered in their illusions of romance, much troubled the young author in this and later books

Eca de Queiroz began his career as a self-declared realist, but as his writing evolved, his novels and stories became a potent blend of realism and fantasy. In this volume, comprising one short novel and six short stories, the reader is introduced to a dazzling variety of worlds and characters - a deceived husband who finds that jealousy is not the answer, a lovelorn Greek poet-turned-waiter working in a Charing Cross hotel, a saintly young woman soured by love, a follower of St Francis who learns that an entire life of virtue can be besmirched by one cruel act, Adam in Paradise pondering the pros and cons of dominion over the earth, Jesus healing a child, and a loyal nursemaid forced to make a terrible choice.

Esta obra (libro de tapa dura) forma parte de la linea TREDITION CLASSICS en la cual la editorial tredition de Hamburgo esta publicando obras de los ultimos dos milenios que ya estan descatalogadas y solo pueden encontrarse en anticuarios. Esta linea quiere preservar la literatura y proteger la cultura para que miles de libros no se pierdan en el olvido. Con la linea TREDITION CLASSICS nos hemos propuesto reeditar miles de escritores clasicos de la literatura mundial en diversos idiomas para hacerles disponibles universalmente.

Diese Hardcover-Ausgabe ist Teil der TREDITION CLASSICS. Der Verlag tredition aus Hamburg veroffentlicht in der Buchreihe TREDITION CLASSICS Werke aus mehr als zwei Jahrtausenden. Diese waren zu einem Grossteil vergriffen oder nur noch antiquarisch erhaltlich. Mit TREDITION CLASSICS verfolgt tredition das Ziel, tausende Klassiker der Weltliteratur verschiedener Sprachen wieder als gedruckte Bucher zu verlegen - und das weltweit Die Buchreihe dient zur Bewahrung der Literatur und Forderung der Kultur. Sie tragt so dazu bei, dass viele tausend Werke nicht in Vergessenheit geraten

Carlos is the talented heir to a notable family in fin-de-siecle Lisbon. He aspires to serve his fellow man in his chosen profession of medicine, in the arts and in politics. But he enters a society affected by powerful international influences - French intellectual developments, English trading practices - that trouble and frustrate him and in the end he is reduced to a kind of spiritual helplessness. Carlos' good intentions decline, amiably, into dilettantism; his passionate love affair itself begins to suffer a devastating constraint. "The Maias" tells a compelling story of characters whose lives become as real and engrossing as any in Flaubert, Balzac or Dickens. This is his masterpiece, a novel of intellectual depth, historical compassion and great wit. Hailed as a masterpiece in the Paris of Flaubert, Balzac and Zola, this remains Eca's most popular novel.

Jacinto, an absentee noble from Portugal, revels in joyous extreme in the latest of French sophistications. Circumstances compel his return to his family estates where he rediscovers the values and pleasures of Portuguese traditional life, but there are doubts about this perfection he finds.