The Maias - Works by Eça de Queiroz 5

The Maias contains a chronicle of customs, portraying, with photographic precision and much humour, Lisbon society in the second half of the 19th century.
It is Eça de Queirós' masterpiece, published in 1888, and one of the most important works in all of Portuguese literature.
Its value lies mainly in the language in which it is written and the subtle irony with which the author defines characters and presents situations. It is a realist (and naturalist) novel, featuring the fatalism, social analysis, adventures, and catastrophe characteristic of a passionate plot.
The work deals with the history of a family (the Maias) over three generations, then focusing on the last generation and highlighting the incestuous love affair between Carlos da Maia and Maria Eduarda.
But the story is also a pretext for the author to criticise the country's decadent situation (politically and culturally) and the high bourgeoisie of 19th-century Lisbon, pervaded by a humour (sometimes subtle, sometimes satirical) that shapes the defeat and disillusionment of all the characters.