About this book
Da Loucura e das Manias em Portugal by Júlio César Machado offers a razor-sharp, humorous portrait of 19th-century Portuguese life where eccentricity, social affectation, and everyday madness intertwine. Machado’s humoristic studies—first published in 1871—sketch vivid characters, witty tableaux, and satirical reflections that probe what counts as sanity in a changing society.
Through episodic essays and observational vignettes, Machado lampoons fashions of the mind: the theatrical gestures of city life, pretensions of taste, and the blurred line between genius and folly. He draws on contemporary cultural currents—from Swedenborgian visions to Romantic sensibilities—to situate his satire within a Portugal negotiating modernity, manners, and medical ideas about madness. The prose balances warmth and irony, offering cultural insight as much as comic relief.
Ideal for listeners who love classic Portuguese literature, social satire, and historical essays, this audiobook is a lively introduction to Machado’s witty voice and to 19th-century Portuguese society. Tune in for sharp observations, period charm, and a humane, funny meditation on the eccentricities that make a nation—and its people—so memorably alive.
