A dignidade das letras e as litteraturas officiaes.

Lisbon, Typographia Universal, 1865.. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. 8°, original yellow printed wrappers (soiled, spine slightly defective). Light foxing. Overall in good to very good condition. Engraved pictorial bookplate of Victor d'Avila Perez. Paper ticket of Mundo do Livro. 48 pp. *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION of this important early work by Quental, the final salvo in his heated pamphlet war with the Portuguese poet Antonio Feliciano de Castilho (1800-1875). In an introduction to Manuel Pinheiro Chagas' O poema da mocidade (Coimbra, 1865), Castilho championed romanticism over the "pretentious affectations" of contemporary Portuguese poets (Bell, Portuguese Literature p. 304). Quental replied in his famous polemic Bom senso e bom gosto (Coimbra, 1865), and the fight was on. Dozens of pamphlets were published as others entered the fray, and Quental eventually was forced to fight a duel with the critic José Duarte Ramalhão Ortigão. The pamphlet war, "cujo melhor e ainda hoje mais vivo documento foi o seu folheto sobre A dignidade das letras e as literaturas officiais" (Saraiva & Lopes, História da literatura portuguesa [1976] p. 918), lasted six months.Quental (1842-1891) is recognized by Saraiva & Lopes as "o principal mentor da geração de 70 nas suas origens, simultaneamente polemista, poeta, doutrinário e até certo ponto caudilho" (p. 915). Bell adds that he was "that rare thing in Portuguese literature, a poet who thinks" (p. 328). Born in Ponta Delgada in the Azores, he studied law at Coimbra from 1858 to 1864. He soon became a socialist, and after working in Paris and traveling in the United States, played an active part in the socialist movement in Lisbon. With the publication of such works as Odas modernas, 1865, Primaveras românticas, 1875 and Sonetos, 1881, he became one of the leading Portuguese poets of the nineteenth century. He retired to Villa do Conde in 1882, but never found peace of mind: nine years later he shot himself in a public square of Ponta Delgada.Provenance: The library of Victor Marat d'Avila Perez was one of the most important ever sold at auction in Portugal. A total of 8,962 lots went under the hammer from October 1939 through April 1940 from a six-volume catalogue, each volume lasting an unspecified number of nights (our guess is five nights for each part).*** Innocêncio VIII, 71. Araujo, Ensaio de bibliographia antheriana 27; Bibliographia antheriana, resposta . . . pp. 38. Avila Perez 6136: this copy. NUC: DLC, MH, DCU-IA.