Introduction
In the mid 19th century, you get this feeling that the world is changing at a faster pace than ever before. The force of industrialisation, the strengths and struggles it brings, the factories, artificial lights, rampant poverty and epidemics: they all promote new ideas in the minds of intellectuals and creative individuals.
During the first half of the century, you had a general spread of Romanticism as the leading current. You see how paintings and books go back to nature, to the force of the individual, to poetic beauty. Everything is made to be exaggerated: love turns into passion, characters die mercilessly or else endure terrible trials.
There are extraordinary thought experiments, such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It is a fertile period for imagination.
Yet when you reach the mid century, there are different societal reactions. Some individuals begin to look not at the meandering creations of their minds, not at enigmas and monsters and myths, but at the society that surrounds them, the palpable and the visible. One of those individuals is none other than Eça de Queiroz, of whom we will talk just now.
Eça de Queiroz: diplomat, translator and Realist writer
José Maria de Eça de Queiroz was born on the 25th November 1845, in Póvoa do Varzim. His parents, José Maria de Almeida Teixeira de Queiroz and Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eça, were, at the time, unmarried, which is quite a scandal in Victorian societies. They were married when little José was four years old, though their son remained with maternal grandparents until he turned 10.
Eça de Queiroz lived during troubled times. In the first half of the 19th century, Portugal had to deal with three invasions by Napoleon's armies, an abrupt change to the political regime (absolute monarchy to constitutional), a civil war for the throne, several revolutions, and strong disputes regarding the nature of the country's constitution. Moreover, the kingdom was left under a Regency when Queen Maria II died in 1853, leaving her eldest son, barely fifteen years old, as the second constitutional monarch.
It is no surprise, therefore, that there was a certain delay to the country's development, not aided by poor transport infrastructures and its periferal position regarding the rest of Europe.
Eça de Queiroz came from wealthy families and, therefore, followed a very usual path for young men of the upper class. At 16, he went to Coimbra to study Law. The following years are spent in intellectual circles, debating literature, fighting the established academics through insulting newspaper articles, and publishing his first works. He worked, then, as a journalist, and later, in 1867, as a lawyer.
Traveler and diplomat
The life of this gentleman is marked by extensive travels:
1855: Studies in Porto.
1861: Studies in Coimbra.
1866: lives in Lisbon, beginning his career as a lawyer and journalist. Begins translating theatre plays; publishes in Newspapers. By the end of the year, he moves to Évora, where he becomes an administrator.
1867: Works as a lawyer and returns to Lisbon, where he collaborates with the newspaper Gazeta de Lisboa.
1869/1870: Egypt. He saw the opening of the Suez Canal.
1870: returns to Lisbon, and publishes, through a newspaper, The Mistery of the Sintra Road, with Ramalho Ortigão.
1870: Administrator in Leiria. Following public exams, he becomes a Consul.
1871: The Casino Conferences, a series of intellectual debates regarding Art and Realism, happen in Lisbon. After a few sessions, they are forbidden by the government, and considered as threats to public peace.
1872: Consul in the former Spanish Antilles (Havana).
1873: Travels through Canada, Central America and the United States of America, to recover from climate-induced diseases in Havana.
1875: Consul in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where he complains about the weather and spleen.
1878: Consul in Bristol. Cousin Basílio is published and the 3000 copies sell out.
1879-1882: travels through France.
1882: Return to Bristol.
1883: Becomes a partner at the Royal Academy of Sciences.
1884: Once more he is in France (in Angers), and spends the summer in Portugal.
1885: Meets Émile Zola and also his future wife.
1886: Marriage to Emília de Castro Pamplona (in Porto). Return to Bristol.
1887: Birth of their first child, a daughter named Maria, in Porto.
1888: Consul in Paris. Birth of second son, José Maria, in London.
1889: Birth of third son, António, in Paris.
1891: Birth of fourth and last son, Alberto, in London.
1892: Like many other intellectuals of the time, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, developed an interest in spiritism, and participated in several sessions in France - he went as far as to buy a spiritism table.
1893: Moved to Neuilly.
1895: Holidays in Sintra, Portugal.
1896: Receives the French Condecoration of the Legion of Honour.
1898: Journey to Serpa, Portugal.
1899: Journeys to Tormes, Salamanca, and holidays in Forest-par-Chaumes.
1900: Journey to Arcachon, Biarritz, Pau and Lourdes, to seek improvements for his health. Return to Paris.
1900: Death in Paris, France.
He spent, therefore, the vast majority of his adult life abroad or travelling, but was always strongly connected to Portugal, where his books were being published and his official correspondence shared in newspapers.
During his 54 years, Eça de Queiroz published significant numbers of books, booklets, newspaper articles, studies, literary reviews, literary critics, journal correspondences, political analyses, translations...
Personal life
Eça was a figure of contradictions. He disliked England, but found great interest in its society: he found the weather bad and the cooling made him unhappy, but greatly admired the English way of thinking and education, something which is reflected across his books. In his heart, however, he was a Francophile.
He was married only once, to Maria Emília de Castro. They married in Porto in 1886, and she accompanied him in his consular posts, though she strongly disliked Bristol and took up a residence in London, from whence Eça de Queiroz would commute. They had four children (three sons and a daughter), and you can find old interviews with his daughter across the internet. Partly due to his reputation and talent and partly due to his son's participation in the government during the military dictatorship era, several of his works survived the censorship. Some of the most controversial, such as the Crime of Father Amaro, did not.
Though he posed himself a Realist, Eça de Queiroz was targeted by fellow realists - and commended by others.
Émile Zola, acclaimed French novelist, considered him to be one of the greatest writers of the century, greater even than his fellow countryman, Gustave Flaubert (the author of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education). Others, however, such as the great Brazilian writer Machado de Assis, considered him much too sensationalist, much too intense, his writing too filled with flourishes. Such great divergences did he cause!
In year 1900, he passed away - either victimised by tuberculosis, which was the mal-du-siécle, or by consequences of Crohn's disease. First buried in the Alto de São João Cemetery (Lisbon), he was then moved to Santa Cruz do Douro, and remains there today. There is a project on the side of the Portuguese government to bring his body to the National Pantheon (Church of St. Engrácia, Lisbon), but it is controversial, due to opposition from living family members.
Works
His best-known work is The Maias: Episodes of Romantic Life. Is the title familiar? I took inspiration from the appendix to name my own book series, Episodes of Regency Courtship! It is a portrayal of the Portuguese (and, in particular, Lisbon) society of the mid-19th century, mixed with a tragical fate in which a brother and sister, separated at birth, are doomed to meet again in adulthood, unknowing of each other's true identity...
Nevertheless, he has plenty of other works, and rather good ones, so I leave you here with a list:
O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road", 1870) in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão
O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Crime of Father Amaro", 1875)
O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Bazilio", 1878)
O Mandarim ("The Mandarin", 1880)
As Minas de Salomão, translation of H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines (1885)
A Relíquia ("The Relic", 1887)
Os Maias ("The Maias", 1888)
Uma Campanha Alegre ("A Cheerful Campaign", 1890–1891)
Correspondência de Fradique Mendes ("Correspondence of Fradique Mendes", 1890)
A Ilustre Casa de Ramires ("The Illustrious House of Ramires", 1900)
Posthumous works
A Cidade e as Serras ("The City and the Mountains", 1901)
Contos ("Tales") (1902)
Prosas Bárbaras ("Barbarous Narratives", 1903)
Cartas de Inglaterra ("Letters from England", 1905)
Ecos de Paris ("Echos from Paris", 1905)
Cartas Familiares e Bilhetes de Paris ("Family Letters and Notes from Paris", 1907)
Notas Contemporâneas ("Contemporary Notes",1909)
São Cristóvão, originally published as part of the volume Últimas páginas ("Last Pages", 1912)
A Capital ("The Capital", 1925)
O Conde d'Abranhos ("The Earl of Abranhos", 1925)
Alves & C.a ("Alves & Co.", 1925)
O Egipto ("Egypt", 1926)
A Tragédia da Rua das Flores ("The Tragedy in Flowers Street", 1980) - generally considered to have been the first rehearsal for The Maias.
Share your thoughts in the comments! Which other 19th-century writers do you think are reminiscent of Eça de Queiroz?
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