author
Guilherme Read Cabral
1821–1897
Born in England and later naturalized in Portugal, this 19th-century writer and public official moved between politics, journalism, and literature in the Azores. He is best remembered today for works such as Um novo mundo, which helped keep his name alive among readers of Portuguese-language fiction.
1 Audiobook
Um novo mundo
by Guilherme Read Cabral
About the author
Born in Portsmouth in 1821 as William Harding Read Junior, he later settled in Portugal and became known as Guilherme Read Cabral. After becoming a Portuguese citizen, he adopted the surname Cabral through family ties to António Bernardo da Costa Cabral. He died in Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, on June 18, 1897.
His career reached beyond writing. He served as a politician and as a senior customs official, and he was also active in journalism and public life in the Azores. That mix of administrative work and literary interests gives his career a distinctly 19th-century feel: practical, civic-minded, and deeply tied to the cultural world around him.
As an author, he published poetry and prose, and his surviving bibliography shows a broad range of interests. Modern readers are most likely to encounter him through Um novo mundo, preserved by Project Gutenberg, but his body of work also includes historical and literary writing that reflects the intellectual life of Portuguese Atlantic society in his time.