
audiobook
In this eclectic volume the writer invites sleepless readers into a midnight salon of fleeting thoughts and historical vignettes. Drawing from personal insomnia, the prose weaves together playful essays, fragmentary poems, and curious anecdotes about Portuguese nobility, forgotten saints, and the quirks of 19th‑century publishing. The tone balances wit and melancholy, offering a gentle consolation to anyone kept awake by restless nights.
The collection moves from a mock‑heroic prologue that likens each page to a bronze link in a fragile chain, to vivid sketches of vanished courts, literary rivalries, and obscure folk legends. Along the way, the author’s voice flits between scholarly observation and intimate confession, turning the act of reading into a nocturnal dialogue with ghosts of the past. Listeners will find a rich tapestry of cultural memory that comforts the mind while it wanders in the dark.
Language
pt
Duration
~1 hours (104K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
Porto: Typographia de Antonio José da Silva Teixeira 62--Rua da Cancella Velha--62 1874
Credits
Produced by Pedro Saborano
Release date
2008-01-31
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1825–1890
A major figure in 19th-century Portuguese literature, this intensely prolific novelist is remembered for dramatic stories of love, fate, and social pressure. His life was as turbulent as his fiction, and that emotional force still gives his work its sting.
View all books