Machado de Assis's most famous works are the novels Dom Casmurro (1899), The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1881), and Quincas Borba (1891), along with stories such as The Psychiatrist, Midnight Mass, and The Fortune-Teller.
Dom Casmurro is usually presented as the author's masterpiece. It is narrated by Bentinho, who recounts his love for Capitu, and it leaves a question that runs through the schools: did Capitu cheat on Bentinho or not? The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas is the book in which Machado's writing changes course: the narrator is a dead man who recounts life after death. Quincas Borba follows the teacher Rubião, who inherits a fortune, and the philosopher who invents Humanitism, a doctrine the novel satirizes.
Among the stories, The Psychiatrist (1882) shows a doctor, Simão Bacamarte, obsessed with deciphering the mystery of madness in the town of Itaguaí. Midnight Mass (1894) and The Fortune-Teller (1884) appear in popular lists among the author's most celebrated works, along with the novels Helena, Esau and Jacob, The Hand and the Glove, and Counselor Ayres' Memorial.
There is no public count of Machado de Assis's most-read book. Dom Casmurro is the one most often cited as the best known, but the lists consulted include no sales or reading data.
On Clavis: The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas, Quincas Borba.