Eca's English Letters [Paperback]

Eca de Queiros (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1857545001 | ISBN-13: 978-1857545005 | Publication Date: March 1, 2001

England in the 1880s: the aristocracy stoically endures the tedium of country-bound weeks in winter, when fashion forbids their showing themselves in London. Lord Beaconsfield's death is mourned - and a national myth is buried. The Times remains the watchdog of the English conscience. Abroad, John Bull is sweetly reasonable; Irish rebels must not be allowed to incommode English landlords; Egyptian rebels must by taught to respect their established rulers (and of course, British interests must be safeguarded). Meanwhile, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, an obscure young Portuguese consul, Eca de Queiros, writes regular letters to his Brazilian readers, giving a dry, gently amused, if not wholly impartial, account of these and other English activities. If his facts are sometimes a shade garbled, ad his irony occasionally cruel, his descriptions of peole, places and events are always lively and vigorous. He shows a propoensity for blowing raspberries at our more venerable institutions - the Times he finds incessently amusing - but, read as a corrective to the British propoganda of the period, "Letter from England" provide a vivid glimpse of late-Victorian Britain as an eminently civilized European would have seen it.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd. (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857545001
• ISBN-13: 978-1857545005
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,056,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)