Author. He was a 19th century Portuguese writer. Born José Duarte Ramalho Ortigão, he spent his early years with his maternal grandmother in Porto, with his education provided by a great-uncle and godfather Frei José do Sacramento, a clergyman. He studied Law at the University of Coimbra but he did not complete his studies. After returning to his hometown, he taught French at the College of Lapa, that was managed by his father. Among his students was Eça de Queirós. He married his wife Emília Isaura Vilaça de Araújo Veiga, on his 23rd birthday. In 1862 he dedicated himself to journalism and became a literary critic at the "Jornal do Porto" and the monarchist "O Correio: Semanário Monárquico" and contributed to twenty periodicals throughout his life, like "O Occidente," "O António Maria," or "Brasil-Portugal." At that period Romanticism was the dominant trend in Portuguese literature, led by several major writers including Camilo Castelo Branco and António Augusto Soares de Passos, who influenced Ortigão. In the 1870s, a group of students from Coimbra began to promote Realism and Naturalism in a reaction against Romanticism, a controversy that became known as the "Questão Coimbrã". This group, eventually called the "70s Generation", was to have a major influence on Portuguese literature. As a supporter of Romanticism, Ortigão became involved in a struggle against them and even fought a duel with Antero de Quental, whom he called a coward for having insulted the blind and elderly writer António Feliciano de Castilho. Ortigão was physically wounded in the duel that took place on February 6, 1866. In spite of this early opposition he afterwards became friendly with some members of the group. In 1867, he visited the Universal Exhibition in Paris, which resulted in the book "Em Paris" ("In Paris"), the first of a series of travel books. Dissatisfied with his situation in Porto, he moved to Lisbon with his family, obtaining a vacancy as an officer at the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. In 1870 he wrote "O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra" ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road"), that marked the emergence of the detective novel in Portugal, and, in 1871, created the satirical publications "As Farpas" ("The Barbs"), both in collaboration with Eça de Queirós. When the latter became a diplomat, initially in Cuba, Ortigão continued "As Farpas" alone. However, Ramalho Ortigão had become one of the main figures of the so-called "70s Generation." What happened to almost all the members of that generation happened to him. In a first phase, they intended to bring Portugal closer to modern European, cosmopolitan and anti-clerical societies. Disillusioned with the European lights of material progress, however, they turned, in a second phase, to the roots of Portugal and to the program of a "reportuguesation of Portugal". It was from this second phase that the formation of the group "Os Vencidos da Vida" ("The Losers of Life") resulted, which included, in addition to Ramalho Ortigão, the Count of Sabugosa, the Count of Ficalho, the Marquis of Soveral, the Count of Arnoso, Antero de Quental, Oliveira Martins, Guerra Junqueiro, Lobo de Ávila, Lima Mayer and António Cândido. The prominent intellectuals of the time were then joined by the nobility, in a last effort to restore the prestige of the Monarchy, with King Carlos I, significantly, being unanimously elected "alternate confrere of the group". Following the regicide, in 1908, he wrote "Rei D. Carlos: o martyrizado" (" King D. Carlos: the martyred"). With the establishment of the Republic, in 1910, he immediately asked to resign as librarian at the Royal Library of Ajuda, writing to the President of the Provisional Government Teófilo Braga hat he refused to join the Republic: "this increasing the abject number of bedbugs that I am seeing from a hole disgustingly cover the bed of governance". He then left for voluntary exile in Paris, where he began to write "Últimas Farpas" (1911-1914) against the republican regime. The set of "As Farpas," later gathered in 15 volumes, to which must be added the two volumes of "Farpas Esquecidas," and the aforementioned volume of "Últimas Farpas," was the work that most distinguished him, written in very rich Portuguese, with pedagogical purposes, very critical and showing fine observation skills. He returned to Portugal in 1912 and, in 1914, he addressed the famous "Carta de um velho a um novo" ("Letter from an old man to a young one"), to João do Amaral, where he welcomed the launch of the movement of political ideas called Integralismo Lusitano ("Lusitanian Integralism"). He died of bone sarcoma in Lisbon, on September 27, 1915, at the age of 78. He was originally interred in Prazeres Cemetery, being later moved to a private mausoleum in Alto de São João Cemetery, on November 14, 1917.