O Crime do Padre Amaro

O Crime do Padre Amaro: cenas da vida devota (published in translations as The Crime of Father Amaro: Scenes from the Religious Life or The Sin of Father Amaro), is a novel by the 19th-century Portuguese writer José Maria de Eça de Queiroz. It was first published in 1875 to great controversy. Background Eça finished the first draft of this novel in 1875. He sent it to some friends who ran a literary magazine, with the request that they return the proofs so he could edit them. However, they began to serialise the story without allowing him to see the proofs. He subsequently revised the novel and submitted it to a publisher in 1876 but it was barely noticed by the public. Eça then wrote Cousin Bazilio, returning to The Crime of Father Amaro only after the publication of Cousin Bazilio in 1878. The third version involved an extensive rewrite and was described by Eça as "an entirely new novel". Plot summary The novel concerns a young priest, Amaro, who serves as diocesan administrator at Leiria. Amaro lacks a vocation, having been pushed into the priesthood by his aristocratic patrons, the Marquesa de Alegros and, later, the Conde de Ribamar, and, owing to the vow of chastity he was obliged to take, is obsessed with women and deeply sexually frustrated. Upon arriving in Leiria, he falls for Amélia, the beautiful daughter of his landlady, a pious widow and the mistress of his superior, Canon Dias. After Amélia's fiancé, João Eduardo, publishes an exposé of the local clergy's venal habits in the town's newspaper under a pseudonym, Amaro and his colleagues and parishioners expose João Eduardo as the author of the piece, pressure Amélia to break off the engagement, and drive João Eduardo out of town.