Accompanied by a thorough introduction to "Brazil's Machado, Machado's Brazil", these vibrant new translations of eight of Machado de Assis's, Brazil's most renowned writer and social satirist of the nineteenth-century,  best-known short stories -- (1. To Be Twenty Years Old!  2. The Education of a Poser.  3. The Looking Glass.  4. Chapter on Hats.  5. A Singular Occurrence.  6. Terpsichore.  7.  Father Against Mother.  8. The Alienist.) -- bring nineteenth-century Brazilian society and culture to life for modern readers.