Bastardos do sol. Colecção Autores Portugueses, 8. Livros de Bolso Arcádia.

Lisbon, Editora Arcádio Limitada , 1959.. FIRST EDITION. Small 8°, Original illustrated wrappers. Occasional minor foxing; light browning. Overall in very good condition. Author's signed and dated six-line presentation inscription on half title: "A Alfredo Ribeiro dos Santos // com a admiração // e amizade recente // mas já firme// do // Urbano Tavares Rodrigues // Maio de 1960". Illustrated lithograph bookplate of A.[lfredo] Ribeiro dos Santos (smaller version). 143 pp., (2 ll.). *** FIRST EDITION of this significant novella. In the Alentejo, where Tavares Rodrigues grew up and which is a recurring setting for his work, Irisalva, daughter of a large landowner, revolts against the status-quo. The present book marks the beginning of the author's second phase, characterized by an amplification of the erotic combined with an increased political conscience. Urbano Tavares Rodrigues (Lisbon, 1923-Lisbon 2013) grew up in Moura, in the Alentejo, in a family of large landowners, and eventually became a militant communist. He is a widely acclaimed and prolific author of fiction, researcher, essayist, literary critic, professor Catedrático jubilado at the Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa, member of the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, and recipient of many literary prizes. His earliest works were greatly influenced by existentialism, in particular following the literary model of Albert Camus. Simultaneously they display a certain Portuguese turn-of-the-century decadence, particularly influenced by Fialho de Almeida (especially obsessive evocations of the Alentejo), António Patrício and Manuel Teixeira Gomes, all of whom were discussed by Urbano Tavares Rodrigues in critical essays and later in his doctoral thesis.Provenance: Alfredo Ribeiro dos Santos (Porto, 1917-Porto, 2012), physician, was one of the pioneers of modern anesthesiology in Portugal. Influenced by Leonardo Coimbra, Agostinho da Silva, Sant'Anna Dionísio, Abel Salazar, Jaime Cortesão, Veiga Pires e José Augusto Seabra, he was active in the struggle against the Salazar regime, participating in the Movimento de Unidade Democrática (MUD), the presidential campaign of general Norton de Matos (1948) and that of general Humberto Delgado (1958). Noted bibliophile and collector of reviews, literary journals, and newspapers, he formed one of the most significant libraries in the city of Porto; the auction sale in October 2007, included 3,561 lots. Author of História Literária do Porto através das suas publicações periódicas (2002), he contributed to a number of reviews and newspapers, including Portucale, Nova Renascença (directing the editorial board from 1980 to 1999), O Tripeiro, Cadernos do Tâmega, Letras & Letras, O Comércio do Porto, O Primeiro de Janeiro, Jornal de Notícias, Notícias da Tarde, and Jornal de Amarante.*** See Machado, Dicionário de literatura portuguesa, pp. 422-3. Cristina Robalo Cordeiro in Biblos, IV, 909-13. Dicionário cronológico de autores portugueses, V, 296-8. Jacinto Prado Coelho, ed., Dicionário de literatura (4th ed.), I, 203; II, 509; III, 954; Actualização, pp. 681-2.