> Skip to content
  • Published: 15 August 2012
  • ISBN: 9781612191072
  • Imprint: Melville House
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $22.99

The Alienist



A classic work of literature by “the greatest author ever produced in Latin America.” (Susan Sontag)
 
Brilliant physician Simão Bacamarte sacrifices a prestigious career to return home and dedicate himself to the budding field of psychology. Bacamarte opens the first asylum in Brazil hoping to crown himself and his hometown with “imperishable laurels.” But the doctor begins to see signs of insanity in more and more of his neighbors. . . .

With dark humor and sparse prose, The Alienist lets the reader ponder who is really crazy.

***

This is a Hybrid Book.

Melville House HybridBooks combine print and digital media into an enhanced reading experience by including with each title additional curated material called Illuminations — maps, photographs, illustrations, and further writing about the author and the book.

The Melville House Illuminations are free with the purchase of any title in the HybridBook series, no matter the format.

Purchasers of the print version can obtain the Illuminations for a given title simply by scanning the QR code found in the back of each book, or by following the url also given in the back of the print book, then downloading the Illumination in whatever format works best for you.
Purchasers of the digital version receive the appropriate Illuminations automatically as part of the ebook edition.

  • Published: 15 August 2012
  • ISBN: 9781612191072
  • Imprint: Melville House
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 96
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Machado De Assis

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1839 into a poor mulatto family. Orphaned young, an epileptic, and largely self-educated, he made a living first as a printer, then a journalist, and finally, from 1873 to his death, as a conscientious civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture. Determined to be a writer from the age of fifteen, he published poetry, short stories and novels, winning recognition in the 1860s and '70s with works in the prevailing romantic vein. A severe illness in 1879 marked a starling break in his style and his later works are brilliantly original, ironic novels which include Epitaph of a Small Winner (1880) Quincas Borba (1891) and Dom Casmurro (1899).

He was elected the first President of the Brazilian Academy of Letters in 1897 and on his death, in Rio in 1908, he was given a state funeral with full civil and military honours.