There are authors who are tremendously famous in their own countries and yet virtually unknown abroad. One of them is the incredibly prolific Portuguese writer Camilo Castelo Branco, first Visconde de Correia Botelho whom I portrayed on my literature blog Edith's Miscellany this week.

His time was the nineteenth century and Romance novels made his fame. Up to this day his work is held in esteem by the Portuguese and some of his novels are even read in school. Two of his principal works - Amor de Perdição (1862; Doomed Love) and Mistérios de Lisboa (1854; Mysteries of Lisbon) - have been adapted for the screen in 2009 and 2010. And yet, only very few of his over 260 books have been translated into English.

Click here to read my portrait of this remarkable Portuguese writer!