'A poor young man from Povoa de Varzim'

The signature appeared for the first time in a newspaper around 1865. The name rang no bell and revealed no connection. José Maria d'Eça de Queiroz had been born in Povoa de Varzim, on November 25, 1845, of Judge Teixeira de Queiroz and mother 'unknown' — which is rather unusual. Later, when he was famous, he appropriated his obscure birth and called himself 'a poor man from Povoa de Varzim'. The accepted story is that Carolina Augusta Pereira d'Eça, the orphan daughter of an infantry colonel, had been swept off her guard by the young judge, who had recoiled before his responsibility. This is totally unsatisfactory, and even absurd, in view of what is known of the character and later action of Teixeira de Queiroz. It is far more probable that the man responsible for the birth of José Maria was one who could not marry — perhaps a priest — and that Teixeira, himself in love with the young lady, was the perfect gentleman and took charge of her child and her honour. In fact, he married her a few months later and they had four more children. José Maria was brought up by his Queiroz grandfather, a magistrate and a politician, and joined his natural family as a small boy, to be legitimated at the ripe age of 40, just in time to be married himself.

Queirozes and Pereiras d'Eça are small landed gentry, soldiers and lawyers. The writer's father and grandfather were both Masons, and supporters of the liberal cause of Queen Maria II against absolutism represented by her uncle Don Miguel. He inherited from them a high standard of humanity and justice. At the same time, the mystery of his birth and his parentless childhood left him extremely shy and bitter towards women and bourgeois hypocrisy, as well as with a deeply rooted fantasy-world of hidden interdictions and an anguish of incestuous tragedy.

Eça de Queiroz was educated in a school of Oporto, with Ramalho Ortigão, his closest and lifelong friend, a man of character as well as of culture and a distinguished writer in his own right. Then he went up to Coimbra and studied Law at the famous University, where he met Antero de Quental, the flamboyant poet who shared with him the ideals of proudhonian socialism under a cloak of provocative decadence. Both these encounters were of great importance in shaping his personality.