The presence of novels in women's libraries of the Portuguese Royal Family

• Grant number: 14/23370-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: March 01, 2015
• End date: May 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Other Vernacular Literatures
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Márcia Azevedo de Abreu
• Grantee: Moizeis Sobreira de Sousa
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/07342-9 - The transatlantic circulation of printed matter: the globalisation of culture in the 19th Century, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 15/21639-5 - The novels read by Maria Francisca Benedita (1746-1829) and D. Carlota Joaquina (1775-1830), BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This project aims at pursuing an investigation about the existence of novels in women's libraries belonging to the Portuguese royal family. In doing so, we take the catalogues of Queen Carlota Joaquina's (1775-1830) and Princess Maria Francisca Benedita's (1746-1829) libraries as a basis to our work. Those documents were written in 1831 at the Biblioteca da Ajuda (Library of Ajuda), and have remained untouched ever since, lying at the section of manuscripts of the library we've just mentioned. Although they have been forgotten, such papers show records of unusual collections. The first one contains 2,330 works, and the second contains 2,156 works, which is quite a distinct amount of novels when compared to the contemporary libraries, whose average was around 25 units. The existence of an expressive core of novels is another element to distinguish these two women's libraries compared to most of the women's libraries of that time. Furthermore, both Queen Carlota Joaquina and Princess Maria Francisca Benedita are straightly related to the episode of the Portuguese royal family transfer to Brazil, where both of them lived from 1808 to 1921 - a fact that might bestow these libraries a transatlantic dimension. By considering such specific context and information, we will seek to understand how these libraries were formed, as well as to analyze their collections and to look for the existence of novels. While analyzing these collections, it is our intention to pay special attention to the part concerning novels, for which we will work based on the directions about the shaping of libraries that are contemporary to their formation, so to find out to what degree the fictional works of such libraries align with the ones usually read by a broader audience at that time. This research aims at contributing to the thematic project "Transatlantic Circulation of Printed Works, the Globalization of Culture in the 19th Century" (2011/07342-9). (AU)

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MOIZEIS SOBREIRA DE SOUSA. Catálogo da biblioteca da rainha D. Carlota Joaquina. História, v. 38, 2019-07-01. (14/23370-0)