Free books for learning Brazilian Portuguese

Artur de Azevedo

Every summer, rich merchant João Saraiva sends his trusting wife, D. Senhorinha, to Petrópolis, while he stays in Rio with a French mistress and sends a one-word telegram, "Barca", whenever he "misses the boat". One day the telegram arrives two hours before the boat even leaves. A short, ironic comedy about a cheating husband undone by a careless employee.

Artur de Azevedo

Reginaldo, a patient, mild-mannered clerk, is forever scolded by his wife, whom he calls nhanhã, for being unlucky and spineless. When he buys a lottery ticket numbered 345, she mocks the low number and orders him to swap it for another. A comic tale of marriage and luck, with a final turn in the meek husband's favour.

Artur de Azevedo

On a liner crossing the Atlantic, a forty-year-old husband lectures a younger fellow passenger: a man should never refuse a woman who tempts him, even if she is a friend's wife — and he adds that he is perfectly sure of his own wife, Mariquinhas. Then he dozes off, and the young man goes below deck. A very short comic story with a sly, ironic twist.

Artur de Azevedo

Fabrício, a junior civil servant, wants to follow his sweetheart Zizinha to the spa town of Caxambu, but the minister will only give him leave if a doctor certifies that he is ill. So he dresses up as a sick man for the medical examination, and the doctor's long, mysterious diagnosis has an unexpected effect on him. A short, ironic comedy.

Artur de Azevedo

Timid bachelor Fulgêncio falls into an affair with Bárbara, a married woman, and when her husband Mendes finds a letter and throws her out, she moves in with Fulgêncio. Terrified of the jealous, armed husband, Fulgêncio hardly dares go out — until he meets Mendes face to face. A comic story with an ironic view of marriage.

Lima Barreto

A satirical sketch in dialogue: the narrator chats with Senhor Assírio, who runs a fashionable restaurant in the basement of the Municipal theatre. Assírio talks oddly about whom he will vote for as president, then explains how endless celebratory banquets — for a new book, a newspaper column or a small promotion at the foreign ministry — keep his business thriving. Gently mocking, more a humorous conversation than a story.

José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato

Lucia, nicknamed Narizinho for her turned-up nose, lives with her grandmother, tia Anastacia and her rag doll Emilia, and loves to sit by the stream. One day she falls asleep there and is invited by Prince Escamado, a little fish in a coat and top hat, to the underwater Reino das Aguas Claras, a kingdom of talking insects and animals. There she enjoys a royal banquet and ball, faces the terrible Escorpião Negro and a plot against the prince — a playful, magical children's adventure.

Lima Barreto

The narrator tells of a former office colleague, Anacleto, who took to drink and gambling and beat his wife until she left him and ended up homeless on the streets of Rio. When she dies, he refuses even to identify her body — and years later, that refusal comes back to haunt him. A short, bitter story with an ironic sense of justice.

Artur de Azevedo

Cavalcanti, a bad husband, keeps a French mistress, Josephine Leveau, while his wife, D. Margarida, earns money as a skilled dressmaker. When the mistress asks him for a hundred mil-réis, he gets the money from his wife — and a few words written on the banknote decide what happens next. A short, ironic story where the wronged wife comes out ahead.

Artur de Azevedo

During a smallpox epidemic in Rio, Coriolano refuses to have his little daughter, Pequetita, vaccinated because his strict uncle Bandeira, a positivist, is against vaccines. As children in the neighbourhood die, he grows desperate and decides to stand up to his uncle. A short story with a dark turn and a wise mother at its heart.

Artur de Azevedo

The narrator introduces Guedes, a man famous for using fancy words with exactly the wrong meaning, and describes meeting him in a shop on the Rua do Ouvidor with a witty lady friend. Guedes's blunders, and an argument settled with a dictionary, make up the whole piece. Light wordplay comedy, best enjoyed by learners who like Portuguese vocabulary jokes.

Artur de Azevedo

At a monthly dance in a small provincial town, young Lírio is courting the lovely Alice and plots to steal a kiss from her by having a friend turn off the gas lights at ten o'clock. But Alice's aunt, D. Maricota — a vain, ridiculous old woman who is sweet on Lírio herself — gets in the way. A short, farcical comedy where the trick backfires.

Artur de Azevedo

Young Norberto falls madly in love with a beautiful stranger who smiles at him at the Exhibition, then loses her in the crowd. Each time he spots her again from Rio's trams, the new rule that trams only stop at fixed stops keeps him from reaching her. A light, comic story with a mock-romantic tone.

Lima Barreto

A very short, humorous newspaper piece in which the writer pokes fun at the society columns' habit of inventing new labels for fashionable young women, from encantadoras and melindrosas to the latest, vaporosas. He playfully argues that the words do not fit, and ends with a cheeky suggestion of his own. A witty opinion column rather than a story.

Artur de Azevedo

A writer who must produce a story every week is always being promised a great story idea by a self-important retired official. Sitting next to him on a tram to Copacabana, the writer finally insists on hearing it: a tale about a swindle involving a fake inheritance from Spain. A short, playful story about storytelling, with a wink at the end.

Lima Barreto

In a lively dialogue full of slang, Jaime tells his friend Pena how winning a chicken at a church fair ended with him spending a night in a police cell. The noisy bird gets him thrown off the tram, and then the police suspect where it came from. A short, comic sketch of everyday life in Rio.

Artur de Azevedo

Sr. Paulino, a model husband, is tempted by a pretty woman who moves in across the street and finally arranges to visit her late at night. But while they talk, she tells him things about the house opposite that he never expected to hear. A comic, ironic tale in which a planned affair reveals more than it should.

Artur de Azevedo

Nosy Lustosa watches a pretty neighbour receive two lovers — a fat, bald older man he takes for the one who pays, and a handsome young one. When he meets the young man, Peixoto, at a party, he can't keep quiet about what he has seen, with consequences he did not expect. A short, ironic comedy about gossip and appearances.

Artur de Azevedo

Comendador Salazar, a disagreeable merchant, scoffs that a new newspaper, O Século, won't last a month. His daughter Esmeralda bets that it will survive a year — and if it does, he must let her marry her young suitor, Sousinha. A light, cheerful story about a clever daughter and the bets that follow.

Artur de Azevedo

Colonel Ferraz loves telling wildly exaggerated hunting stories to a big audience, such as how he once saved a young prince from two elephants by the Ganges. Miranda, a young joker who has been listening with a mocking look, answers with an adventure of his own from Ceylon. A short comic story with a deflating punchline.

Artur de Azevedo

César innocently tells his wife, D. Margarida, about a dream in which another man's wife kissed him, and he is surprised when she is hurt; dreams mean nothing, he insists. A few days later, Margarida has a dream of her own to tell. A short, witty comedy about marriage and double standards.

Artur de Azevedo

Vaz, a would-be seducer, finally persuades the apparently shy and innocent Ernestina, wife of the easy-going Friandes, to meet him in a discreet rented room. He is proud to think himself her first lover — until his curiosity about the room's other regular guests leads to a discovery. A short, ironic comedy, as the title suggests.

Artur de Azevedo

Sebastião, worn down by his bad-tempered wife, D. Flaviana, sets up a secret little house for his mistress, Mirandolina, with the help of his best friend, Sepúlveda. One night, after a fight at home, he goes there unannounced. A short, comic and cynical tale about marriage and friendship.

Artur de Azevedo

Raimundo left his home state of Maranhão at twenty after his sweetheart, Filomena, married a rich merchant, and for years he avoided anything that reminded him of home. Older now, he decides to make peace with Maranhão by visiting its section at the Exhibition in Rio — where he meets more of his past than he expected. A gently ironic story about time and heartbreak.

Artur de Azevedo

The Barão da Cerveira, once a poor Portuguese boy named Manuel Barroso who came to Brazil alone at ten, has become a rich and generous merchant who never enjoys his own big garden. One Sunday he finally walks around it and chats with José, the gardener, who comes from the same part of Portugal. A warm, touching story with a happy surprise.

Lima Barreto

Felício, a loyal party voter who owes a doctor and party boss many favours, comes to explain why he will not follow the party line in the presidential election. He argues that he should only choose someone he knows well personally to rule over him and his family, and his reasoning leads to an ironic conclusion. A satirical dialogue about politics.

Artur de Azevedo

Roberto goes out every night and leaves his patient wife at home, where his grandmother's old cuckoo clock strikes the hours. One night he comes home at nearly four in the morning, wakes his wife — and then the clock begins to sing. A short comic story about a husband's quick thinking.

Artur de Azevedo

Garcia, a kind but dim-witted man ruled by his clever wife, D. Laura, takes up spiritualism in the early days of the craze in Rio. Curious whether D. Laura's old admirer, Frederico, is really dead, he calls up his spirit at a séance, and that same night he has a strange encounter at home. A comic, satirical tale about credulity and a deceived husband.

Artur de Azevedo

A poor country couple's husband falls ill, and a travelling doctor, Dr. Marcolino, leaves medicine to be taken every three hours. Since they have no clock, he tells the wife to give a spoonful whenever the rooster crows. A very short comic tale that turns on taking instructions too literally.

Artur de Azevedo

The narrator hires João, a servant from Madeira, and soon discovers that he is remarkably slow-witted. Through a string of funny episodes — the soap, a broken statue, a dog that can swim, a missed wake-up call — João's logic keeps getting stranger. A light comic sketch built from a series of jokes.

Artur de Azevedo

The narrator tells a true anecdote about his late friend Emílio Rouède, a photographer in Rio. When a pushy stranger follows Rouède's pretty wife all the way home and up the stairs, the photographer deals with him in a calm, very original way. A short, light and witty story.

Artur de Azevedo

The stern Conselheiro Lapa throws out the young clerk Alberto who asks to marry his daughter, Rosalina, and she falls ill with grief. For fifteen years the respectable Conselheiro has secretly pursued Teresa, the family's devoted servant — and Teresa decides to use that against him to help the young lovers. A comic story about hypocrisy and a clever woman's trick.

Artur de Azevedo

A family in Rio is obsessed with the jogo do bicho, the illegal animal lottery, and with his last breath the dying father tells his wife to bet everything on the dog. She bets only a small sum, out of respect for his wishes. A very short, darkly comic story.

Artur de Azevedo

Old Lima, a long-serving civil servant, falls ill the day before the Republic is proclaimed in Brazil in 1889 and, as he never reads newspapers, misses the news completely. Back at work a week later, he thinks everyone around him on the train and at the office has gone mad. A comic historical tale whose humour comes from his total confusion.

Artur de Azevedo

Five well-behaved students from Minas share a model house in Rio, and the most serious of them, Gaspar, is the only one who stays out at night. At a birthday lunch, two of the friends discover they are seeing the same Spanish woman, who claims she spends the rest of her time with a stingy eighty-year-old merchant. A very short comic story that builds to a surprising punchline.

Artur de Azevedo

Simeão comes to Rio after eighteen years and finds that his brother José has no trade and lives by his wits. As they walk through the city, José greets one rich or important man after another as his compadre, the godfather of his child, and Simeão wants to know how a man with one son can have eight. A brief comic story with a cheeky explanation at the end.

Artur de Azevedo

Novais, the chief clerk of an import firm, lives on the first floor above the shop and flirts through binoculars with pretty Helena across the back gardens. After an illness he discovers that his boss, Cerqueira, who lives on the floor above, has started flirting with her too, and the ambitious Helena makes a practical choice. An ironic tale in which love and money move people between the building's two floors.

Artur de Azevedo

A short comic scene in a tavern, written as a play: Chico Facada asks Manuel, the shopkeeper, what the word pan-americano means. They look it up in an old dictionary Manuel bought as wrapping paper, find the Greek god Pan, and reach some absurd conclusions. A gentle joke about ignorance and about politics.

Artur de Azevedo

Brochado, a successful young clerk in Rio, misses his father back in Portugal and asks a painter for an oil portrait of him. He has no photograph or drawing, only a short description, so the painter simply paints from that. A very short comic story with a punchline about Brochado's innocence.

Artur de Azevedo

One evening in 1890, after dinner, young Manduca asks his father, Senhor Rodrigues, what the word plebiscito means. Rodrigues will not admit he doesn't know, his wife teases him in front of the children, and he storms off to his room, where he happens to keep a dictionary. A comic domestic scene that pokes fun at male pride.

Artur de Azevedo

Zeca Borges, a small farmer, travels to Rio to visit his brother, a consul just back from Germany. At the address he thinks he was given, a blonde woman who speaks no Portuguese welcomes him with far too much warmth, and he decides she must be his new German sister-in-law. A cheeky comedy of misunderstanding with a grown-up theme.

Lima Barreto

The narrator is introduced to Seráfico Falcote, a well-dressed student in his twenties who treats his companions at a café. Falcote speaks in a broken, rustic Portuguese while giving confident opinions on the European war and on French spelling, and the narrator learns he has already passed many exams. A short satirical sketch that mocks the education system.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

A needle and a ball of thread argue about which of them is more important while a seamstress sews a ball gown for a baroness. The needle boasts that it leads the way, but at the end of the story the work turns out differently for each of them. A short, witty fable with a bittersweet moral about who does the work and who gets the reward.

Artur de Azevedo

In the town of Mar de Espanha, the spoilt Zulmira agrees to let Epidauro Pamplona ask for her hand on one odd condition: he must first see his name printed somewhere. Epidauro tries one scheme after another, from anonymous news items to a charity list and even a small theft, and every attempt goes wrong. Comic for most of its length, the story ends on a darkly ironic note.

Artur de Azevedo

Simplício Gomes, a plain and modest young man, secretly loves the beautiful Dudu but feels unworthy of her. He quietly helps her and her widowed mother, and gives Dudu presents by losing bets about the weather on purpose. When a well-off but arrogant suitor, Bandeira, asks for her hand, Simplício suffers in silence. A gentle, tender story with a warm ending.

Artur de Azevedo

So as not to miss his 5 a.m. train to Minas, Alfredo stays up all night. On the train he finds himself facing a beautiful woman he has been looking for for eight months, sitting with her husband, and the two begin a secret flirtation. But his sleepless night catches up with him. A light, comic story with a wry ending.

Artur de Azevedo

Paulo hurries to the ferry station for his first secret meeting with Isabel, a seamstress who has finally agreed to see him after four months. She doesn't come, and a woman in black who has been waiting in the shadows starts a conversation with him. A light, playful comedy with a twist.

Artur de Azevedo

Xisto, the ugliest man in Rio, silently adores the beautiful widow who lives across the street. One day, to his amazement, she invites him to her house at midnight, but the meeting is strangely cold and brief, and afterwards she ignores him. A year later his friend Wladimir explains the widow's very odd reason, in a comic story with an absurd twist.

Artur de Azevedo

Comendador Viana spots Passos Nogueira, a poet said to be a dangerous seducer, writing in the garden next door, and warns his young wife Laura against him. Laura had never noticed the poet, but her husband's constant warnings only make her curious. An ironic comedy about jealousy that backfires.

Artur de Azevedo

Antonieta, the spoilt and proud daughter of the rich Comendador Costa, rejects every suitor and earns the mocking nickname Não-me-toques. José Fernandes, a loyal employee who has loved her in silence since she was born, saves the family business after her father's ruin and death, and she finally marries him for convenience. A bitter, tragic story about unequal love, with a very dark ending.

Artur de Azevedo

Lieutenant Remígio Soares falls for Dona Andréa, a married woman who is closely watched by her husband's aunt and a loyal gardener. For eighteen months they can only exchange letters through a servant boy, until the chance to meet finally comes and a remedy recommended by his friend Barroso gets in the way. A cheeky comic story with an earthy punchline.

Artur de Azevedo

Romualdo, a serious bookkeeper and faithful husband, gives in to temptation while his wife, D. Eufêmia, is away in Juiz de Fora, and has a short affair with Antonieta, a young woman he meets on a tram. He soon regrets it and drops her, but when the family needs a new nanny he gets a terrible fright. A comic farce with an ironic moral.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Garcia, a young doctor, becomes friends and business partners with Fortunato, a wealthy man who nurses the sick with surprising devotion, and he falls silently in love with Fortunato's gentle wife, Maria Luísa. Little by little Garcia discovers the disturbing secret behind Fortunato's behaviour. A dark psychological story that includes a scene of cruelty to an animal.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

On a walk through Glória, an old conselheiro tells a younger man about Quintília, a beautiful, rich woman who turned down every suitor in Rio. He and his friend Nóbrega set out half as a game to win her, a rivalry that ends their friendship, and he becomes her closest confidant for years without ever winning her hand in the usual way. A melancholy, reflective story with a strange and haunting ending.

Lima Barreto

The newspapers are full of Doctor Gedeão Cavalcanti, a fashionable physician who is also a goalkeeper, poet and dancer, and who charges fifty mil-réis a visit. Antunes, a thrifty grocer from the suburbs who lives for saving money and for his beloved stew, finally pays to see him about a stomach ache. A satirical story about fame and stinginess with a comic ending.

Artur de Azevedo

D. Ritinha Torres finds her husband, Venâncio, flirting from the window with the dressmaker across the street, and runs in tears to her best friend, D. Ubaldina, who advises patience. But Ubaldina's own reaction after Ritinha leaves shows that the best friend has reasons of her own. An ironic comedy of betrayal.

Artur de Azevedo

Romualdo, an out-of-work journalist, is paid by a rich merchant, Caldas, to write a newspaper attack on another old schoolfriend, Saraiva. The next day Saraiva asks Romualdo to write his reply, and the secret writer finds himself on both sides of the quarrel. A comic, ironic story about money, vanity and a clever way out.

Artur de Azevedo

Flores, a bachelor civil servant of nearly fifty, sees his first love Ritinha at a theatre in Rio after thirty years and hardly recognises her. That night he remembers how, as a heartbroken teenager, he planned something desperate when she got engaged, and the wise words of his mother. A bittersweet, gently ironic story about time and ageing.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

At a dinner in eighteenth-century Bahia, the guests argue over whether Adam or Eve was to blame for losing paradise. The judge, Veloso, offers his own authentic version of Genesis, in which the Devil made the world and God corrected it, and his story turns the familiar tale upside down. Playful and witty, with an ironic last line.

Lima Barreto

The narrator, Jarbas, finds his friend Raimundo absorbed in the newspaper's small ads, which he reads to study society: rude landlords, paid motherly love and boastful fortune-tellers. Raimundo then explains where the habit came from, telling how a friend's unhappy wife once showed him a job advert that turned out to be a trap. A conversational, mildly satirical sketch.

Artur de Azevedo

A young baroness, upset because her lover Bittencourt has stopped answering her letters, visits her worldly friend the viscountess early one morning to ask for advice. The older woman thinks it over and dictates a letter containing a cunning trick. A short, ironic comedy about love affairs and good manners.

Lima Barreto

A retired narrator who enjoys visiting the local grocery shops describes the troubles of his friend Carlos Ventura, a small shopkeeper. All day Ventura is pestered by polite salesmen from the wholesalers and by officials from the price commission, each with a funny nickname. A very short, loosely connected sketch with dry humour.

Artur de Azevedo

Angelina, daughter of Seabra, flirts from her window with a shy, elegant stranger who walks past every afternoon. Suddenly the family leaves for a spa town, where she gets engaged to a rich young doctor and forgets the stranger. On her wedding day she gets an awkward surprise. A light comic story with an ironic ending.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

In 1840 a schoolboy named Pilar goes to class instead of skipping it, and the teacher's timid son Raimundo secretly offers him a shiny silver coin in exchange for help with a grammar lesson. Another boy, Curvelo, is watching them. A vivid, gently ironic story about childhood and a boy's first lessons in corruption and betrayal.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

D. Paula, a respected older widow, finds her niece Venancinha in tears after a jealous quarrel with her husband over a young man she danced with. She makes peace between the couple and takes the girl to stay with her in Tijuca, but the young man's name stirs memories of her own past. A subtle, ironic study of memory and desire.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

An old priest remembers a night when, as chaplain of the church of São Francisco de Paula, he saw a strange light inside the locked church and found the statues of the saints come to life, chatting about the day's prayers. Saint Francis de Sales tells the others about Sales, a miserly moneylender praying for his dying wife, whose love for her struggles with his love of money. A fantastic tale, ironic and gently comic.

Júlia Lopes de Almeida

A fairy tale about Princess Edeltrudes, whose father, the King, has never refused her anything since her mother died, so she grows up beautiful, cruel and loved by no one. When she overhears three blind men from the city asylum criticising her, she orders them to describe the bottom of the sea, the sky and the great forests within three days or be hanged. A gentle, moral story about kindness and the power of imagination.

Lima Barreto

Doctor Felismino Praxedes Itapiru da Silva arrives in Rio from the North with a law degree, an expensive briefcase and big plans, though his career and his past are not what they seem. To everyone's surprise this snob, who despises criminal law, agrees to defend a poor drunken servant accused of robbing and nearly killing an old retired professor. A satirical story about pretension that ends with a dramatic courtroom surprise.

Artur de Azevedo

Major Brígido's beautiful daughter Gilberta is set on marrying Teobaldo Nogueira, a smooth young man with no steady income, and nothing her father says can change her mind. Then the Major's best friend Viegas, apparently dying of tuberculosis, proposes to marry her on his deathbed so she can inherit his money, and Teobaldo is all for it. A light, ironic tale in which a doctor's diagnosis turns everyone's plans upside down.

Lima Barreto

The narrator describes a poor road on the edge of Rio and the people who stop at a roadside shop there, among them Manel, a Portuguese grass-cutter who lives in the fields and loves his two oxen, Estrela and Moreno. One early morning, crossing the railway line with his cart, he meets with disaster. A short, sad sketch of humble suburban life.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

In 1890 Evaristo returns to Rio after eighteen years in Paris and visits Mariana, the married woman he once loved passionately, whose husband Xavier is now dying. While he waits in her drawing room, her old portrait brings their affair vividly back to life. A subtle, ironic story about memory, love and how differently two people may remember the past.

Artur de Azevedo

Barreto, a modestly paid civil servant, is embarrassed by his wife Francina's dazzling jewellery, which he tells everyone is cheap and fake. After she dies in childbirth, a jeweller calls on him with a surprising offer. A very short, darkly ironic tale with a sting in the final lines.

Lima Barreto

Simões comes from a family of slave-owners ruined by the end of slavery, and after a comfortable career as a civil servant he moves to the suburbs and keeps a pack of hunting dogs. With nothing to hunt, he sets them on his neighbours' chickens, until the neighbours decide to frighten him off. A short, dark and bitterly ironic tale.

Artur de Azevedo

A comic story told in verse. Ponciano, a bookkeeper with beautiful handwriting, falls for Gabriela, his rich employer's daughter, at a birthday feast, and the two find a clever way to send each other notes, one of them hidden in her father's hat. All goes well until the father buys a new hat.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Canon Matias is writing a sermon when he gets stuck looking for the right adjective. The narrator takes the reader inside the canon's brain, where a noun and an adjective, imagined as two lovers, search for each other through layers of memory and learning. A playful, comic fantasy about how writing works.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Rangel, a pompous, cautious clerk of forty-one nicknamed 'the diplomat', has secretly loved young Joaninha for months and carries his first love letter to her family's Saint John's Eve party in 1854, waiting for the right moment. Then a lively young man called Queirós arrives and charms the whole room. A comic and bittersweet story about timidity, vanity and missed chances.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

A dying man writes down what happened to him in 1860, when he took a job as a live-in nurse to Colonel Felisberto, a sick, cruel old man who insulted and beat everyone who cared for him. One terrible night their quarrel turns violent, and the rest of the story follows the nurse's guilt, his fear of being found out and an unexpected inheritance. A dark, ironic study of conscience and self-justification.

Lima Barreto

Over drinks, Castelo tells his friend Castro how, broke and desperate in Rio, he answered an advertisement for a teacher of Javanese, a language he did not know at all. After learning the alphabet in a library, he wins the trust of an old baron, and his reputation as an expert keeps growing. A very funny satire about bluffing and a society that admires titles more than real knowledge.

Artur de Azevedo

Chagas, a shy young clerk in a government office, starts a secret affair with Clorinda, a married woman he met at the theatre, and runs himself into debt and trouble at work. When her husband installs a telephone at home, she decides to call him at the office, where the only phone is on the minister's desk. A short comic tale built around one very awkward phone call.

Lima Barreto

A short, sarcastic opinion piece rather than a story. Whenever money runs short, Congress talks of cutting the number of government employees, but the narrator points out that the Chamber and Senate never cut their own large and growing staffs. It is a brief satire of political hypocrisy.

Artur de Azevedo

Colonel Mascarenhas, a once-rich farmer, has lost his land, his money and his family at the roulette table. On the opening night of a new gambling house he loses again and begs for a share of his losses back, and the owners throw him a small note just to be rid of him. A lively, ironic story about gamblers, luck and how quickly people change their tune.

Artur de Azevedo

Kind, hard-up Paulino is married to Adelaide, who never forgives him for being poor. When the ship he should have been on sinks with everyone aboard, he lets the world believe he is dead and starts a new life in the south under another name. Years later he comes back to Rio in secret and sees what has become of his wife and his only friend, in a wry, comic ending.

Artur de Azevedo

Salazar, a minor writer who has become quite famous in Rio, grows so vain that he ignores his shy, clever wife. Then he starts receiving beautifully written love letters from a mysterious admirer who signs herself Poverina and gently corrects his mistakes, and he falls desperately in love with her. A neat, ironic tale whose final meeting brings a surprise.

Lima Barreto

A short, humorous newspaper piece rather than a story. The narrator, a civil servant, is willing to have his salary taxed to save the country's finances, but the politicians keep changing the figure, from ten per cent to five to twelve. He mocks their dithering and asks one simple question: how much?

Artur de Azevedo

One morning Angélica tells her idle husband, Braga Lopes, that she needs five hundred mil-réis at once, and when he shows her the unpaid rent she sets off by carriage to borrow it. Friend after friend turns her down, so she finally goes somewhere she should not. A sharp, ironic little comedy about vanity and a very strange sense of honour.

Lima Barreto

Presented as notes left by an old clerk, this piece describes life in a government office, where every day is calm and every letter starts the same way. It sketches three types of office 'genius': an honest, limited old hand, a puzzle-lover who quietly decides promotions, and a lazy, gossiping young man who got his post through his father-in-law. A sharp satire of bureaucracy rather than a plot-driven story.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Maria Regina is courted by two men at once: Maciel, young, handsome and brave but shallow, and Miranda, fifty, hard and unkind but brilliant company. Each has what the other lacks, so in her imagination she combines them into one perfect man. A subtle, ironic and slightly melancholy story about wanting perfection.

Lima Barreto

Serapião Stromberg, the most elegant young man in a small northern capital, is made a congressman and comes to Rio eager to show off his taste in art and letters at a society afternoon. Before long a single small portrait shows how much he really knows. A very short comic satire of pretension.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Pestana writes lively polkas that all of Rio dances to and whistles in the street, but he longs to compose one serious piece worthy of Mozart or Beethoven, and every attempt fails. The story follows him through his marriage, his losses and his growing fame as the city's polka king. A sad, ironic portrait of an artist at war with his own talent.

Lima Barreto

An old school friend, now an engineer working on railway surveys in the interior, tells the narrator about a curious belief of ordinary Brazilians: that anyone called doctor must know everything. He illustrates it with what happened when his workers woke him one night to treat a sick man. A short, gently humorous anecdote.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Inácio, a dreamy fifteen-year-old, works for Borges, a bad-tempered legal agent, in Rio in 1870 and puts up with insults and loneliness for one reason: the bare arms of D. Severina, the woman Borges lives with. When she realises the boy is in love with her, she is troubled, then touched. A delicate, gently ironic story about a first awakening of love and a single Sunday he never forgets.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Written as a short play: at the end of time, Ahasverus, the Wandering Jew, believes he is the last man alive and longs at last to die. Then the Titan Prometheus appears and tells him about a new and better human race to come. A philosophical dialogue with an ironic ending about how much we cling to life.

Artur de Azevedo

A shabby old Portuguese man named Andrade takes the cheapest room in Dona Eugênia's boarding house and spends hours locked in with an iron strongbox, so everyone decides he must be a rich miser. Hoping to inherit, the widow and another lodger shower him with food, gifts and comforts for years. A comic, ironic story about greed, with a twist when the box is finally opened.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

In Rio in 1869, Camilo is having an affair with Rita, the wife of his oldest friend Vilela, and laughs at her for visiting a fortune-teller. When anonymous letters arrive and Vilela urgently summons him to the house, Camilo, frightened, finds himself climbing the fortune-teller's stairs too. A tense, ironic story about superstition and fate, with a famously sharp ending.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis

Brás Cubas tells his life story after his own death, starting with his funeral and the grand medicine he was inventing when he died. He recalls his spoilt childhood, an expensive first love with Marcela, his studies in Portugal, losing Virgília and a political career to Lobo Neves, his long affair with her after her marriage, and his friendship with Quincas Borba, a beggar turned philosopher. A witty, ironic and often pessimistic novel, told in short chapters that constantly joke with the reader.