Camilo Castelo Branco was the most celebrated Portuguese writer of his time and still occupies a central place in the Portuguese literary canon. The prestige in Europe of realist narratives as opposed to the Romantic mode in which Castelo Branco wrote, the increased recognition of work by realists such as Eça de Queirós, and the pronounced biographical tendencies of many scholars (nourished by Castelo Branco's own work) have contributed to relegating Castelo Branco to the margins of the nineteenth-century literary scene. He has, nonetheless, endured by virtue of the continuous reprints of his works (subject to the demands of the market), his inclusion in school curricula, and studies by prestigious scholars. Although his work is recognized mainly within his own country, he is one of the most widely read Portuguese novelists of all time.

Born in Lisbon on 16 March 1825, Camilo Ferreira Botelho Castelo Branco...