Bidspirit auction | QUEIRÓS (Eça de). O MANDARIM.

QUEIRÓS (Eça de). O MANDARIM. Porto. 1880. - QUEIRÓS (Eça de) O MANDARIM . Segunda edição. Porto: Livraria Internacional de Ernesto Chardron, 1880. [4], 182, [2] pp.; 180 mm. The second edition, published in the same year as the original edition (1880), testifies to the novel's immediate success with the public. The Mandarin is one of Eça de Queirós' most unique works, situated outside the realist novel genre that made the author famous. It tells the story of Teodoro, a humble clerk who, tempted by the Devil, agrees to ring a bell in order to inherit the fortune of a rich Chinese mandarin, who is instantly killed from a distance by the simple gesture. Tormented by guilt, he then sets off for China in search of redemption. Of a fantastical and satirical nature, the work functions as a moral fable about the impunity of crime committed at a distance and the hypocrisy of the bourgeois conscience. An earlier, shorter version was published in the Diário de Portugal in 1880, before the final version edited by Chardron. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate