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Eça de Queiroz

Portuguese realist writer (1845–1900)

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Biography

Eça de Queiroz was born in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, on the 25th of November 1845, as the illegitimate child of José Maria de Almeida Teixeira de Queiroz and Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eça, both unmarried.

Carolina's mother forbade their relationship, and it was only following her death that the couple were able to wed, when Eça was already four years old. To avoid a possible scandal, Carolina had had to leave the family home temporarily so that she could give birth away from prying eyes. The child, the first of seven siblings, would be christened as the son of an unknown mother and was recognized only after his parents married. Eça was raised chiefly by, and continued to live with, his grandparents up to the age of ten. Through his parents he was a relative of several authors like Alexandre O'Neill, Fernando Pessoa or Júlio Dantas, and the Portuguese footballer João Neves. He is also the great-great-grandfather of contemporary Portuguese author Afonso Reis Cabral.

At age 16, he began studying law at the University of Coimbra, where he met and befriended the Azorean poet Antero de Quental. Eça's first work consisted of a series of prose poems published in the Gazeta de Portugal, which eventually appeared in book form in a posthumous collection, edited by Batalha Reis, and entitled Prosas Bárbaras ("Barbarous texts"). He worked as a journalist at Évora, then returned to Lisbon and, together with his former school friend Ramalho Ortigão and others, conceived and created the Correspondence of the fictional adventurer Fradique Mendes. The work was first published in 1900.

Between 1869 and 1870, Eça de Queiroz travelled to Egypt to witness the grand opening of the Suez Canal. The voyage 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 makes an appearance. He likewise authored A Relíquia ("The Relic") during this period, but it would be published only in 1887. The work was strongly influenced by Memorie di Giuda ("Memoirs of Judas") by Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, to such an extent that the perceived similarities led some scholars to accuse the Portuguese writer of plagiarism.

Having been dispatched to Leiria to work as a municipal administrator, Eça wrote his first realist novel, O Crime do Padre Amaro ("The Crime of Father Amaro"), set in the same city, and first published in 1875.

Eça then worked 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, where there is a memorial plaque in his honour. His diplomatic duties included the dispatch of detailed reports to the Portuguese foreign office concerning the unrest in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields – in which, as he points out, the miners earned twice as much as those in South Wales, along with free housing and a weekly supply of coal. The Newcastle years were among the most productive of his literary career. 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 some 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 conceived a title for his masterpiece Os Maias ("The Maias"), though it was largely written while he was Portuguese consul in Bristol from 1879 to 1888. It was published the year he left Bristol to become the Portuguese consul-general in Paris. In February 1886, he had married Maria Emília de Castro in Lisbon, who joined him at his residence in 38 Stoke Hill, Stoke Bishop, near Bristol where there is also a memorial plaque. As Maria Emília felt unhappy during her stay at Stoke Hill, the couple agreed to relocate and rented a house in Notting Hill, London, likely a satisfactory arrangement for both as his earlier letters indicate that he had already made frequent visits to London. Thereafter Eça commuted between London and Bristol, where his house in Stoke Bishop was equidistant between the outer docks at Avonmouth and inner docks in Bristol.

Eça, a cosmopolitan widely read in English literature, was not enamoured of English society, but he was fascinated by its oddity. In Bristol he wrote: "Everything about this society is disagreeable to me – from its limited way of thinking to its indecent manner of cooking vegetables." 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. "I detest England, but this does not stop me from declaring that as a thinking nation, she is probably the foremost." It may be said that England acted as a constant stimulus and a corrective to Eça's traditionally Portuguese Francophilia.

Eça's politics were liberal, although he was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. In 1898, upon growing more pessimistic about the future of Portugal and Europe, he described himself as a "vague, saddened anarchist". Together with Ortigão and others he formed an informal group of intellectuals known as Life's Vanquished.

He had actively sought the position of Portuguese consul-general in Paris and, having obtained it in 1888, remained in post for the rest of his life. 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. His son António Eça de Queiroz would hold government office under António de Oliveira Salazar. He was first buried in a family vault in Alto de São João Cemetery and later exhumed and moved to a grave in Santa Cruz do Douro Cemetery, in Baião Municipality, Portugal. His remains were transferred to the Church of Santa Engrácia (the National Pantheon) in January 2025.

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