Pouco conhecida,esta obra é extremamente importante para o entendimento do pensamento oitocentista acerca da escravidão e de suas implicações. O livro é composto por três histórias, nas quais o autor traz à tona os diversos tipos negros retratados pela literatura oitocentista, desnudando, assim, a imagem que a parcela branca dessa sociedade tinha dos africanos e de seus descendentes.
Author
Joaquim Manuel de Macedo (June 24, 1820 — April 11, 1882) was a Brazilian novelist, medician, teacher, playwright and journalist, famous for the romance A Moreninha. He is the patron of the 20th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. Joaquim Manuel de Macedo was born in the city of Itaboraí, in 1820, to Severino de Macedo Carvalho and Benigna Catarina da Conceição. Graduated in Medicine in 1844, he started to practice it in the inlands of Rio. In the same year, he published his romance A Moreninha. In 1849, he founded the magazine Guanabara, along with Manuel de Araújo Porto-alegre and Gonçalves Dias. In this magazine, many parts of his poem A Nebulosa were published. Returning to Rio, he abandoned Medicine and became a teacher of History and Geography at the Colégio Pedro II. He was very linked to the Brazilian Royal Family, even becoming a tutor for Princess Isabel's children. He was also a provincial deputy and a general deputy, and a member of the Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute. During his last years of life, he suffered mental disturbies. Those disturbies deteriorated his health and made him die in May 11, 1882. He was married to Maria Catarina de Abreu Sodré, the cousin of Álvares de Azevedo. From Wikipedia
