Júlio Dinis is the most important pseudonym of Joaquim Guilherme Gomes Coelho. He wrote under other pseudonyms (for example, Diana de Avelada) in some newspapers, and for a short period of time he signed his literary works with his own surname, Gomes Coelho. Dinis's works constitute an important bridge between the movements of Romanticism and realism in Portuguese literature: his novels have Romantic characteristics yet, at the same time, show a critical attitude typical of realism. His works portray a society in transition and explain the impact that the liberal revolution of 1820, the civil war, and the political instability that ended in the 1850s had on life in the small villages in the north of Portugal. The plots of his narratives generally end with the marriage of important characters from different social classes and backgrounds, which may be seen as a metaphor of a country in...