20–26882
The events related in this book took place in the eighteen nineties but about them there is the flavor of past centuries. Mr Cunninghame Graham has told the story of Antonio Maciel, known as Antonio Conselheiro (the councillor) who was known as a prophet and saint and who with his followers became involved in civil war. A long introduction describes the scene of action, that region of Pernambuco and Bahia, known as the Sertão, a term translatable only as “wooded, back-lying highlands.” It is an arid country, devoted to cattle raising and it has developed a people described as “a race apart—a race of centaurs, deeply imbued with fanaticism, strong, honest, revengeful, primitive, and refractory to modern ideas and life to an extraordinary degree.” Their religious faith is likened to that of some of the Gnostic sects of Asia Minor in the second century.
“Mr Cunninghame Graham gives us the story with a certain graphic effect and some picturesque detail. Unfortunately, the picturesque detail is not chosen so as to throw light on the points that are most obscure and of deepest interest. It is a pity that the value of a book containing so notable a record should be impaired by grave defects of style and taste.” F. W. S.
+ − Ath p368 Mr 19 ’20 1000w + Booklist 17:65 N ’20
“The volume belongs in the hands of all who enjoy stirring fiction as well as illuminating history and the charm of a personal style.” I. G.
+ Boston Transcript p6 Ag 4 ’20 1450w
“His story Mr Cunninghame Graham tells vividly, with rather too many nagging philosophical comments, but with a richly colored background of strange, wild customs.”
+ − Nation 111:162 Ag 7 ’20 300w
“One can read in every page the ‘peculiar pleasure’ of the author, in his writing of such an extraordinary nineteenth century tale. It gives him everything in narration which delights him.”