José Maria de Eça de Queirós

Background

Eça de Queirós was born in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, on January 25, 1845. An illegitimate child, he was officially recorded as the son of José Maria de Almeida Teixeira de Queirós and Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eça.

Education

At age 16, he went to Coimbra to study law at the University of Coimbra. He took his degree in 1866 without having distinguished himself particularly either in his studies or in the student life.

Career

Eça's first work was a series of prose poems, published in the Gazeta de Portugal magazine, which eventually appeared in book form in a posthumous collection edited by Batalha Reis entitled Prosas Bárbaras ("Barbarous texts"). After graduating he established himself in Lisbon, where he identified himself with the generation of young intellectuals whose names are associated with the Cenáculo and the group that took the name of Os Vencidos da Vida. He worked as a journalist at Évora, then returned to Lisbon and, with his former school friend Ramalho Ortigão and others, created the Correspondence of the fictional adventurer Fradique Mendes. This amusing work was first published in 1900. In 1869 and 1870, Eça de Queirós travelled to Egypt and watched the opening of the Suez Canal, which inspired several of his works, most notably O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road", 1870), written in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão, in which Fradique Mendes appears. A Relíquia ("The Relic") was also written at this period but was published only in 1887. The work was strongly influenced by Memorie di Giuda ("Memoirs of Judas") by Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, such as to lead some scholars to accuse the Portuguese writer of plagiarism. After his tour of duty in Cuba, during which he visited Canada and the United States, he served as consul in England, in the Portuguese consular service and after two years' service at Havana was stationed, from late 1874 until April 1879, at 53 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. His diplomatic duties involved the dispatch of detailed reports to the Portuguese foreign office concerning the unrest in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields. When he was later dispatched to Leiria to work as a municipal administrator, he wrote his first realist novel, O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Sin of Father Amaro"), which is set in the city and first appeared in 1875. He published the second version of O Crime de Padre Amaro in 1876 and another celebrated novel, O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Bazilio") in 1878, as well as working on a number of other projects. These included the first of his "Cartas de Londres" ("Letters from London") which were printed in the Lisbon daily newspaper Diário de Notícias and afterwards appeared in book form as Cartas de Inglaterra. As early as 1878 he had at least given a name to his masterpiece Os Maias ("The Maias"), though this was largely written during his later residence in Bristol and was published only in 1888. From 1878 to 1888 he served as consul in Bristol. In 1888 he became Portuguese consul-general in Paris. He lived at Neuilly-sur-Seine and continued to write journalism (Ecos de Paris, "Echoes from Paris") as well as literary criticism. He died in 1900 of either tuberculosis or, according to numerous contemporary physicians, Crohn's disease.

Achievements

• There is a plaque to Eça in Bristol and in Grey Street, Newcastle, unveiled in 2001 by the Portuguese ambassador. There is a memorial plaque in his honour in Newcastle upon Tyne. There have been two film versions of O Crime do Padre Amaro, a Mexican one in 2002 and a Portuguese version in 2005 which was edited out of a SIC television series. On Brazilian television: in 1988 Rede Globo produced O Primo Basílio in 35 episodes. In 2007, a movie adaptation of the same novel was made by director Daniel Filho. In 2001 Rede Globo produced an acclaimed adaptation of Os Maias as a television serial in 40 episodes. A movie adaptation of O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra was produced in 2007. Theatre Adaptations: in 2001, 'Galleon Theatre Company', the resident producing company at the 'Greenwich Playhouse' presented 'Cousin Basílio' and in 2002 'The Maias'. From 8 March to 3 April 2011 the company are reviving their production of 'The Maias' at the 'Greenwich Playhouse'.

Works

More photos

• book

  • O Mandarim

    (Do ponto de vista da evolução literária de Eça de Queiroz...)

  • O crime do padre Amaro

    (Aos moldes de um romance puramente fictício, a história d...)

  • O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra

    (O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra é um romance da autoria c...)

  • Os Maias

    (Os Maias é uma das obras mais conhecidas do escritor port...)

  • A Tragédia da Rua das Flores

    (Nas palavras do próprio autor, "trata-se de um incesto in...)

  • O Primo Basílio

    (Esta obra respeita as regras do Novo Acordo Ortográfico. ...)

Views

Quotations: In Bristol Eça de Queirós wrote about English society: "Everything about this society is disagreeable to me - from its limited way of thinking to its indecent manner of cooking vegetables. " "I detest England, but this does not stop me from declaring that as a thinking nation, she is probably the foremost. "

Personality

Eça, a cosmopolite widely read in English literature, was not enamoured of English society, but he was fascinated by its oddity. As often happens when a writer is unhappy, the weather is endlessly bad. Nevertheless, he was rarely bored and was content to stay in England for some fifteen years.

Connections

José had a child: António Eça de Queirós.

child:

António Eça de Queirós

António Eça de Queirós was a Portuguese monarchist politician and agitator and an official in the Estado Novo of António de Oliveira Salazar.

friend::

Ramalho Ortigão