José Maria de Eça de Queiroz or Queirós (November 25, 1845 - August 16, 1900) is generally considered to be the greatest Portuguese writer in the realist style. Zola considered him to be far greater than Flaubert. Others rank him with Dickens, Balzac and Tolstoy. Eça never officially rejected Catholicism, but was very critical of the Catholic Church of his time, as is evident in his novels.

Cartas de Inglaterra ("Letters from England") is a collection of journalism by the 19th century Portuguese novelist Eça de Queiroz. He worked in the Portuguese consular service and was stationed at Newcastle upon Tyne from late 1874 until April 1879; from then until 1888 he was at Bristol. During this period he published O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Basílio") and Os Maias ("The Maias"), but he was also writing occasional London letters for the Lisbon daily newspaper Diário de Notícias. Some of these afterwards appeared in book form as Cartas de Inglaterra.