by Camilo Castelo Branco

Born in Lisbon in 1825, Camilo Castelo Branco was the illegitimate son of a lesser aristocrat from northern Portugal. At age 10, after both his parents died, he was sent north to live with relatives. The boy received an education from country priests, under whose guidance he studied Portuguese, French, and classical and ecclesiastical literatures, meanwhile coming to know a segment of the population that would later furnish material for his stories. In early adulthood, Castelo Branco moved to Oporto, where he insinuated himself into the city’s bohemian and literary circles and found a ready outlet in journalism for his early political essays and for his fiction in serial form. From about 1848 to 1886, he wrote prolifically in a wide range of genres: poetry, drama, the short story, literary criticism, history, genealogy, translation, and the novel, the genre...