author
João Xavier da Mota
1850–1895
A late-19th-century Portuguese writer and bibliographer, remembered today for work that moves between literary homage and careful cataloging. His surviving books suggest a reader deeply interested in both Portugal’s literary world and the history of Brazilian coinage.
1 Audiobook
Camilleana Collecção das obras de Camillo Castello Branco
by João Xavier da Mota
About the author
Born in Porto on March 10, 1850, João Xavier da Mota was a Portuguese author whose work has remained accessible through library and public-domain records. The basic outline of his life that can be confirmed is brief: he was born in Porto and died in 1895.
The books linked to his name show an unusually wide range of interests. He is associated with Camilleana, a work connected with Camillo Castelo Branco, and with Moeda do Brazil, 1645-1888, a detailed cataloging work on Brazilian currency. Together, those titles suggest a writer drawn both to literary culture and to the patient, documentary side of scholarship.
Although not much biographical detail is easy to verify, his publications give him a distinct profile: a 19th-century man of letters with a strong antiquarian streak, preserving literary and historical material in print. For modern listeners, that makes him an appealing figure from the edges of the canon—someone whose books open small windows onto the intellectual life of his time.