“Elegantly poetic prose… Fans of Vargas Llosa and Saramago will find a kindred spirit in these pages.”
Kirkus

The Illustrious House of Ramires

by José Maria de Eça de Queirós

Translated from the Portuguese by Ann Stevens

“Eça de Queiros (1845-1900) ought to be,” as the London Observer stated, “up there with Balzac, Dickens, and Tolstoy as one of the talismanic names of the nineteenth century.” His superlative penultimate novel, The Illustrious House of Ramires (1900) centers on Gonçalo Ramires, heir to the most noble family of Portugal. Gonçalo, charming but disastrously effete, muddles through his life while writing a historical novel based on the heroic deeds of his ancestors. “The record of their valour is ironically counterpointed by his own chicanery. A combination of Don Quixote and Walter Mitty, he is continually humiliated [but he] is at the same time kindhearted …. Ironic comedy is the keynote of the novel …. Eça de Queiros has justly been compared with Flaubert and Stendhal.”(The London Spectator)

Buy from:

Paperback (published May 1, 1994)

ISBN
9780811212649
Price US
18.95
Trim Size
5x8
Page Count
320

José Maria de Eça de Queirós

19th century Portuguese diplomat and writer

“Elegantly poetic prose… Fans of Vargas Llosa and Saramago will find a kindred spirit in these pages.”
Kirkus
José Maria de Eça de Queirós, where have you been all my life?
—Lorin Stein, The Paris Review
He is far greater than my own dear master, Flaubert.
—Zola