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In a brilliant new translation, the wonderful penultimate novel by E�a de Queir�s: �Portugal's greatest novelist� (Jos� Saramago) The Illustrious House of Ramires, presented here in a sparkling new translation by Margaret Jull Costa, is the favorite novel of many E�a de Queir�s aficionados. This late masterpiece, wickedly funny and yet profoundly tender, centers on Gon�alo Ramires, heir to a family so aristocratic that it predates even the kings of Portugal. Gon�alo�charming but disastrously effete, idealistic but hopelessly weak�muddles through his pampered life, burdened by a grand ambition. He is determined to write a great historical novel based on the heroic deeds of his fierce medieval ancestors. But �the record of their valor,� as The London Spectator remarked, �is ironically counterpointed by his own chicanery. A combination of Don Quixote and Walter Mitty, Ramires is continually humiliated but at the same time kindhearted. Ironic comedy is the keynote of the novel. E�a de Queir�s has justly been compared with Flaubert and Stendhal." (less)

In a brilliant new translation, the wonderful penultimate novel by E�a de Queir�s: �Portugal's greatest novelist� (Jos� Saramago) The Illustrious House of Ramires, presented here in a sparkling new translation by Margaret Jull Costa, (…more)