As Farpas: Chronica Mensal Da Politica, Das Letras E Dos Costumes (1873-10/11)

Before Eça de Queirós wrote novels that would define Portuguese literature, he and Ramalho Ortigão produced this incendiary monthly pamphlet, a razor-sharp chronicle of 1870s Lisbon that sold out its 2000-copy first edition in days. As Farpas (The Darts) is social satire at its most vicious: a systematic,几乎 complete sociology of post-Regeneration Portugal delivered through attacks on the bourgeois order, the press, the Catholic Church, Romantic literature, and the era's desperate moral hypocrisy. The authors skewer everything from partisan journalism to the segregation of women's roles, all rendered with the kind of refined, intelligent humor that makes you wince even as you laugh. These orange-covered pamphlets, decorated with the demon Asmodeus, were considered a "course in sociology" of their time, yet they read as fresh today as they did in 1871. For anyone seeking to understand the roots of modern Portuguese culture, or simply to witness two of its greatest writers at their most irreverent, this is essential reading.