Iraçéma: the Honey-lips, a Legend of Brazil/Preface

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PREFACE.

I cannot allow my readers to remain ignorant of the name of Senhor J. de Alencar, the author of this and several other works; for he deserves to be as well known in England as in Brazil, and it must be the result of the usual modesty of a really clever man that he is not so.

He is their first prose and romance writer. His style, written in the best Portuguese of the present day—one to be learnt and copied—is in thorough good taste and feeling. It contains poetic and delicate touches, and beauty in similes, yet it is real and true to life.

I cannot thank him sufficiently for having allowed so incompetent a translator as myself to be the first to introduce him to the British public. I have endeavoured to be as literal as possible, but I cannot pretend to do him justice, for our harsh Northern tongue only tells coarsely a tale full of grace and music in the Portuguese language; but I have ​done my best, and if he permits me to translate all his works, I hope to do better as I go on, especially if he will again—as he has already done—give me instructions in Tupy, the language of the aborigines.

ISABEL BURTON.

Santos São Paulo, Brazil.

This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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