Eça de Queiros's superlative novel The Illustrious House of Ramires (originally published in 1900) is presented here in a sparkling new translation by Margaret Jull Costa. The favorite novel of many Eça de Queiros aficionados, this late masterpiece, wickedly funny and yet profoundly tender, centers on Gonçalo Ramires, heir to a family so aristocratic that it predates even the kings of Portugal. Gonçalo--charming but disastrously effete, idealistic but hopelessly weak--muddles through his pampered life, burdened by a grand ambition. He is determined to write a great historical novel based on the heroic deeds of his fierce medieval ancestors. But "the record of their valor," as The London Spectator remarked, "is ironically counterpointed by his own chicanery. A combination of Don Quixote and Walter Mitty, he is continually humiliated [but he] is at the same time kind hearted. Ironic comedy is the keynote of the novel . Eça de Queiros has justly been compared with Flaubert and Stendhal" -- Verso title page.