De Queiroz, a professional diplomat for most of his life, ranks among the great Realist novelists of the later 19th century, a powerful social chronicler and analyst who nevertheless suffuses his style with Romantic warmth. The Maias are an ancient Portuguese family in inevitable decline, and the setting is Lisbon where the prevailing intellectual and political lassitude gradually overcomes even the cream of the younger generation intent on reform. At the core of the story is incest between brother and sister, neither of whom is aware of any blood relationship, but both of whom are shattered emotionally when the truth becomes known. The novel mixes Balzacian power and drama with something of the dry social objectivity of Trollope.