Dragon's teeth

DRAGON’S TEETH
A Novel
FROM THE PORTUGUESE
MARY J. SERRANO
AUTHOR OF “DESTINY AND OTHER POEMS,” ETC. TRANSLATOR OF “PEPITA JIMENEZ,” ETC.
BOSTON TICKNOR AND COMPANY 211 Fremont Street 1889
Copyright, 1889 , BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY. All rights reserved. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
IN presenting this graphic picture of Lisbon life to the American public, the translator has assumed the responsibility of softening here and there, and even of at times effacing, a line too sharply drawn, a light or a shadow too strongly marked to please a taste that has been largely formed on Puritanic models, convinced (without entering into the question of how far a want of literary reticence may be carried without violating the canons of true art) that while the interest of the story itself remains undiminished, the ethical purpose of the work will thereby be given wider scope.
M. J. S.
MARCH, 1889.
THE name of Eça de Queiros stands at the head of the list of Portuguese novelists. Born in Oporto early in the latter half of the present century, he was intended for the profession of the law by his father, who belonged to a family distinguished in the annals of Portuguese jurisprudence; but he soon abandoned his legal studies for literature, toward which his inclinations impelled him, and which he cultivated with immediate and marked success, the articles from his pen that appeared from time to time in the various periodicals of the day attracting wide-spread and favorable notice.
His characteristics as a writer are,—to quote from the Preface of the Spanish version of the present work,—