Alfred d'Escragnolle Taunay (1843-1899) is among the most important of Brazil's novelists. Born at Rio de Janeiro of noble family he went through a course in letters and science, later engaging in the campaign of Paraguay. He took part in the retreat of La Laguna, an event which he has enshrined in one of his best works, first published in French under the title _La Retraite de la Laguna_. He served also as secretary to Count d'Eu, who commanded the Brazilian army, and later occupied various political offices, rising to the office of senator in 1886. His list of works is too numerous to mention in a fragmentary introduction of this nature; chief among them stands _Innocencia_; a sister tale, so to speak, to Isaacs's _María_. According to Verissimo, _Innocencia_ is one of the country's few genuinely original novels. It has been called, by Mérou (1900), "the best novel written in South America by a South American," a compliment later paid by Guglielmo Ferrero to Graça Aranha's _Canaan_. Viscount Taunay's famous work has been translated into French twice, once into English, Italian, German, Danish, and even Japanese.
The scene is laid in the deserted Matto Grosso, a favorite background of the author's. Innocencia is all that her name implies, and dwells secluded with her father, who is a miner, her negress slave Conga, and her Caliban-like dwarf Tico, who loves Innocencia, the Miranda of this district. Into Innocencia's life comes the itinerant physician, Cirino de Campos, who is called by her father to cure her of the fever. Cirino is her Ferdinand; they make love in secret, for she is meant by paternal arrangement for a mere brute of a mule driver, Manaçao by name. Innocencia vows herself to Cirino, when the mule-driver comes to enforce his prior claim; the father, bound by his word of honor, sides with the primitive lover. The tragedy seems foreordained, for Innocencia makes spirited resistance, while Manaçao avenges himself by killing the doctor. A comic figure of a German scientist adds humor and a certain poignant irony to the tale. Such a bare outline conveys nothing of the mysterious charm of the original, nor of its poetic atmosphere. Comparing _Innocencia_ with what has been termed its sister work, _María_, I believe that _María_ is the better tale of the two, although there is much to be said for both. The point need not be pressed. The heroine of _María_ is more a woman, less a child than Innocencia, hence the fate of the Spanish girl is tragic where that of the other maiden is merely pitiful. _Innocencia_, on the other hand, is stouter in texture. In _María_ there is no love struggle; the struggle is with life and circumstance; in _Innocencia_ there is not only the element of rivalry in love, but in addition there is the rigid parent who sternly, and at last murderously, opposes the natural desires of a child whom he has promised to another. Where _María_ is idyllic, poetic, flowing smoothing along the current of a realism tempered by sentimentalism, _Innocencia_ (by no means devoid of poetry) is romantic, melodramatic, rushing along turbulently to the outcome in a death as violent as María's is peaceful. There is in each book a similar importance of the background. In _Innocencia_ the "point of honor" is quite as strong and vindictive as in any play of the Spanish Golden Age. _María_ shares with _Innocencia_ relieving touches of humor and excellent pages of character description.