Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), the descendent of African slaves, is considered one of the greatest Latin American authors of the last century. His novels include The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, and Dom Casmurro. Dain Borges is a Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego and is author of The Family in Bahia. Carlos Felipe Moisés is a Brazilian poet and literary critic. Elizabeth Lowe is the author of The City in Brazilian Literature. She lives in Gainesville, FL.

"Like Balzac's Human Comedy, Machado de Assis's major novels provide readers with a social physiognomy--a map of surface phenomena that indicate deeper cultural meaning....This fresh translation, sponsored by the Library of Latin America, will hopefully attract new readers to one of the great 19th-century novelists."--Publisher's Weekly