May 20, 2010 Jose Maria De Eca De Queiros

José Maria de Eça de Queiroz or Eça de Queirós (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɛsɐ dɨ kejˈɾɔʃ] or[kɐiˈɾɔʃ]; November 25, 1845–August 16, 1900) is generally considered to be the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style.^[1] Zola considered him to be far greater than Flaubert. Others rank him with Dickens, Balzac and Tolstoy. Eça never officially rejected Catholicism, but was very critical of the Catholic Church of his time, and ofChristianity in general (also Protestant churches) as is evident in some of his novels.

He used the old-fashioned spelling "Eça de Queiroz" and this is the form that appears on many editions of his works; the modern standard Portuguese spelling is "Eça de Queirós".

In 1998, the national airline of Portugal, TAP, dubbed one of its A-319 aircraft the "Eça de Queirós".

Eça worked in the Portuguese consular service and after two years' service at Havana was stationed at 53 Grey Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, from late 1874 until April 1879. His diplomatic duties involved the dispatch of detailed reports to the Portuguese foreign office concerning the unrest in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields - in which, as he points out, the miners earned twice as much as those in South Wales, along with free housing and a weekly supply of coal. The Newcastle years were among the most productive of his literary career. He published the second version of O Crime de Padre Amaro in 1876 and another celebrated novel, O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Basílio") in 1878, as well as working on a number of other projects. These included the first of his "Cartas de Londres" ("Letters from London") which were printed in the Lisbon daily newspaper Diário de Notícias and afterwards appeared in book form as Cartas de Inglaterra. As early as 1878 he had at least given a name to his masterpiece Os Maias ("The Maias"), though this was largely written during his later residence in Bristol and was published only in 1888. There is a plaque to Eça in that city and another was unveiled in Grey Street, Newcastle, in 2001 by the Portuguese ambassador.