From Júlia Lopes to Ecila Worms

The day before the new column was published for the first time, O País announced the novelty with a note published in the same area of the page which was devoted to the section:

However, Ecila Worms remained incognito to scholars for decades. It is thanks to the diligent efforts of Nahete de Alcantara Silva that the authorship can be credited to Júlia Lopes de Almeida.5 Nahete de Alcantara Silva, ‘Júlia Lopes de Almeida e sua trajetória de consagração em O País’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, 2015), p. 12. The researcher discovered the pseudonym precisely through this row between the writer and Figueiredo Pimentel, which began with a slight about Pimentel’s book Contos da carochinha, published in ‘A moda’ on 20 January 1899.6 Figueiredo Pimentel, Contos da carochinha (São Paulo: Editora Quaresma, 1958 [1894]). Júlia Lopes de Almeida, ‘A moda’ [O País, 20 Jan. 1899, pp. 1–2] in Júlia de Lopes Almeida (pseudonym Ecila Worms), A moda (1892–1901), pp. 281–283. In his response, Pimentel ends up identifying who was behind the pseudonym Ecila Worms and, for its part, so does the newspaper itself when defending the professionalism of its relations with contributors, as seen in the excerpt above.

It is essential to ponder why Almeida chose to use a pseudonym, as this practice can be linked to a variety of circumstances. As mentioned in the Introduction to this book, the literati tended to contribute to several periodicals simultaneously to leverage their financial earnings. In the case of women writers, resorting to anonymity was a response to the circumstances of the day that limited women’s participation in the public arena. Hiding one’s identity was a form of self-protection when daring to go beyond the limits imposed by Brazil’s conservative society, marked by gender hierarchies. Since the eighteenth century, it had been common for women writers to adopt often male pseudonyms, in an attempt to achieve greater acceptance. The choice of a female pseudonym went beyond the simple concealment of identity; it was an act of (re)baptism, a reaffirmation of female identity and a conscious break with the traditional role of women in patriarchal society, or at least a licence to question it. However, although based in sound logic, the different arguments do not seem to fully account for the case of Almeida, as we shall now see.

Shortly after the birth of Júlia Valentim da Silveira Lopes in 1862, the family settled for a few years in Nova Friburgo, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, and returned to the capital when Almeida was about six years old. They moved again in 1870, this time to the interior of the state of São Paulo, more specifically to the city of Campinas, which was flourishing thanks to the coffee plantations that were beginning to spread across the so-called Paulista West. Forced to spend much of her youth at home because of poor health, the young Júlia was brought up by her Portuguese mother, Antônia Adelina, who had studied at the Lisbon Conservatory, and her older sister, Adelina Amélia, and benefited from an exceptionally comprehensive education. She learnt to read from her older sisters (Adelina, herself a talented poet, and Maria José), and also had classes in foreign languages, music, and literature. She was encouraged by her father, the Portuguese doctor, playwright and translator Valentim José de Oliveira Lopes. The family’s first trip to Europe took place in 1875 and, before returning to Campinas, they spent two years in Montevideo, Uruguay, due to Dr Valentim’s health problems.

In a well-known account the writer gave to João do Rio in 1905, she vividly recalled her first poems written clandestinely and her first appearance in the Gazeta de Campinas (Campinas, 1869–88) in 1881, with a text supposedly commissioned by the paper’s director to her father, who delegated the task to her, claiming he did not have time. In fact, there had never been any invitation from the paper and, in her own words, ‘it was only later, much later, that I learnt of my father’s sweet invention’.7 João do Rio, O momento literário, Silvia Maria Azevedo and Tania Regina de Luca (eds) ([1909]. São Paulo: Rafael Copetti, 2019), p. 65. The text is a commentary on the performance of Italian actress Gemma Cuniberti at the Municipal Theatre of Campinas. The full text was published in Gazeta de Campinas at on 7 December 1881. See Michele Asmar Fanini, ‘Fardos e fardões: mulheres na Academia Brasileira de Letras (1897–2003)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Universidade de São Paulo, 2009), pp. 116–117. It is worth highlighting the unusual support of Dr Valentim, who had strong ties with the city’s cultural elite, whom he often received at his home. The social values held at the time meant there were numerous constraints that discouraged women from actively participating in the intellectual field, so much so that the literary scene was almost exclusively the domain of men.

Whereas the family environment and relationships acted as positive social markers, both in terms of her education and for standing up to the limits imposed by unequal gender relations, it was the young woman’s talent that ensured her presence on the pages of Gazeta de Campinas until March 1886, when the family enjoyed an extended stay in Lisbon.8 For information on Almeida’s collaboration in Gazeta de Campinas, see Fanini, ‘Fardos e fardões: mulheres na Academia Brasileira de Letras (1897–2003)’ and Eleonora de Luca, ‘O “feminismo possível” de Júlia Lopes de Almeida’, Cadernos Pagu, 12 (1999), pp. 275–299.

At the age of twenty-three, she began exchanging letters with the Portuguese poet and journalist Francisco Filinto de Almeida. At the time, Filinto was co-editor of A Semana (Rio de Janeiro, 1885–88 and 1893–95) with Valentim Magalhães. A romantic relationship blossomed from this correspondence. According to Fanini, who interviewed descendants of the author, the trip to Portugal was aimed at keeping Júlia away from Filinto, as her father was against the union. The strategy failed; the suitor followed her to Lisbon and the couple married on 28 November 1887.9 Fanini, ‘Fardos e fardões: mulheres na Academia Brasileira de Letras (1897–2003)’, pp. 120–121. However, before going to Lisbon, the reach of Júlia Lopes’ columns, still signed in her maiden name, stretched to Rio de Janeiro. Her contribution to O País began with the texts ‘A irmã Christina’ and ‘Iluminuras’, printed on 6 December 1884 and 11 February 1885, respectively.10 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, ‘A irmã Christina’, O País, 6 Dec. 1884, p. 2, <http://memoria.bn.br/DocReader/178691_01/266> [accessed 29 Dec. 2023]; ‘Iluminuras’, O País, 11 Feb. 1885, p. 2, <http://memoria.bn.br/DocReader/178691_01/54> [accessed 29 Dec. 2023]. In A Estação, she had fourteen pieces published between 31 May 1885 and 15 December 1891. It should be noted that, after her marriage to Filinto de Almeida, she used her married name, Júlia Lopes de Almeida. There is an interesting coincidence regarding the dates of her last chronicle in A Estação (15 December 1891, see Table 3.1) and her first ‘A moda’ column (24 February 1892), which would suggest that she seized her collaboration with A Estação as a result of having conquered space in a newspaper that enjoyed a wider audience, to deal with the subject of fashion. Then, on 28 February 1885, her name appeared in the pages of A Semana, a magazine that soon achieved success in literary circles with the short story ‘Iluminuras – As lágrimas’.11 Guilherme Barp, ‘Os contos esquecidos de Júlia Lopes de Almeida: resgate e edição atualizada’ (unpublished master’s dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, 2023), p. 16.

Almeida published her first two books under her maiden name: Contos infantis (1886), co-authored with her sister, Adelina A. Lopes Vieira, a work made up of texts in verse and prose, which was adopted in Brazilian state schools from 1891 and saw successive new editions until the late 1920s, and Traços e iluminuras (1887),12 Adelina A. Vieira and Júlia Lopes, Contos infantis em verso e prosa destinados às escolas primárias do Brasil (Lisbon: Tipografia Mattos Pereira, 1886). The first edition is available at: <https://digital.bbm.usp.br/handle/bbm/7792>. From the second edition onward, the prologue was preceded by the note: ‘By decision of the General Inspectorate of Primary and Secondary Instruction of the Federal Capital of the United States of Brazil, on 14 April 1891, this book was approved for use in public primary schools; in view of which we have ordered this second edition, which is illustrated with pictures for the children’s greater enjoyment and with a short quiz at the end of each story, according to the method adopted in the works of elementary education, prescribed by the same Inspectorate’. The sixth edition, published in Rio de Janeiro in 1905 by Laemmert & Cia, the source of the passage quoted, is available at: <https://lemad.fflch.usp.br/sites/lemad.fflch.usp.br/files/2018–12/contos%20infantis.pdf> [accessed 9 Oct. 2023]. Júlia Lopes de Almeida, Traços e Iluminuras (Lisbon: Tipografia Castro & Irmão, 1887). a collection of short stories. Released in Portugal by the Mattos Moreira and Castro & Irmãos printing houses respectively, the volumes received considerable attention in A Semana, a periodical to which she continued to send contributions from the Portuguese capital.

Returning to Brazil in 1888, the couple settled in Rio de Janeiro, where their first child, Afonso, was born. In her writing, Almeida began to document the transformations taking place in Brazilian society at the end of the nineteenth century. In addition to trams, railways, electric lighting, and the creation of great avenues and public gardens, Rio de Janeiro also boasted, despite the low literacy rate, a free and competitive national press, which promoted an emerging intellectual class. Succeeding in the frenetic world of journalism at the turn of the century required various talents. As well as having good contacts, aspiring writers needed to cover a wide variety of topics and submit to the imperatives inherent to journalistic writing. Such was the case for Almeida. It is true that the privileged position that both her father and husband enjoyed in the world of journalism opened doors for them in the Brazilian and Portuguese publishing industry. However, it was her considerable literary and journalistic talents, borne out through her extensive and assiduous work in Brazilian periodicals, that guaranteed her a significant place in the Brazilian Republic of Letters.

Still in 1888, now incorporating her husband’s surname, Júlia Lopes de Almeida published her first novel, Memórias de Marta, which was serialised in Tribuna Liberal (Rio de Janeiro, 1888–89) and in book form in 1899.13 The newspaper’s circulation was brief (1 December 1888 to 30 June 1889) and Júlia’s novel ran from 3 December 1888 to 18 January 1889. The journal is available at: http://bndigital.bn.br/acervo-digital/tribuna-liberal/709808. The first edition in book form, published in 1899 by Casa Durski, based in Sorocaba, inner-state São Paulo, and the subsequent edition, which was released in Paris, under the seal of Livraria Francesa e Estrangeira Truchy-Leroy, with no indication of the year, is available at <www.literaturabrasileira.ufsc.br/documentos/?id=13130> [accessed 9 Oct. 2023]. When announcing the author’s contribution in the second edition of the serial, those responsible praised the ‘beautiful short stories’ she had been publishing in Gazeta de Notícias (Rio de Janeiro, 1875–1977), an indication that her collaboration was increasingly in demand and, like her male contemporaries, she appeared simultaneously in different periodicals.14 See Barp, ‘Os contos esquecidos de Júlia Lopes de Almeida: resgate e edição atualizada’, and Deivid Aparecido Costruba, ‘Para além do sufragismo: A contribuição de Júlia Lopes de Almeida à história do feminismo no Brasil (1892–1934)’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, Unesp-Assis, 2017). In late November the following year, when Filinto was invited to join the board of the powerful morning newspaper A Província de São Paulo (São Paulo, now O Estado de S. Paulo, 1875), the family moved to the capital of São Paulo,15 Note published in A Província de São Paulo, 20 Nov. 1889, p. 1: ‘The elegant prose writer and dear poet Filinto de Almeida, who is well known and appreciated by our readers for his chronicles of Rio, arrived in town yesterday. The talented writer joins the editorial staff of this newspaper’. where they lived until 1894.16 Filinto was elected state representative in the 1892–1894 legislature, which was installed on 7 April 1892 and closed on 30 September 1892. The following year, the sessions were held between 8 March and 31 August, while in 1894 the activities took place between 7 April and 25 July. His collaboration on the editorial board of the powerful newspaper certainly contributed to his election. Her relationship with the Rio de Janeiro press did not cool down; on the contrary, in late 1891 Almeida featured on the pages of Gazeta de Notícias with her novel A família Medeiros. The serial was published as a book in late December 1891, by Companhia Editora Fluminense, although 1892 appears as the year of publication. The work began to be reported and commented on in the press in January 1892 and achieved significant public success.17 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, A família Medeiros (Rio de Janeiro: Companhia Editora Fluminense, 1892). The first edition is available at <https://digital.bbm.usp.br/handle/bbm/6776> [accessed 9 Oct. 2023]. From a personal point of view, it was during her stay in São Paulo that Almeida suffered the severe tragedy of losing two of her children, Adriano and Valentina.

By cross-referencing data from the author’s biography with the publication dates of ‘A moda’ columns, one concludes that the almost one-year interruption in the column’s publication, between 29 May 1893 and 25 May 1895, may be related to the personal tragedy that the writer faced, followed by a possible trip to Europe as a way of coping with the bereavement of losing her children.

During the period in which she signed Ecila Worms, in addition to her intense and extensive contribution to various publications, Almeida published the novel A viúva Simões in 1895, also serialised in Gazeta de Notícias and, two years later, in book form with the seal of the leading Portuguese publisher António Maria Pereira.19 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, A viúva Simões (Lisbon: António Maria Pereira, 1895). The first edition is available at <https://digital.bbm.usp.br/handle/bbm/607> [accessed 9 Oct. 2023]. A falência, released in 1901 and printed by the A Tribuna printing house, was her first novel published directly in book form, a sign both of her growing renown as a writer and of the novel’s premeditated importance, proven by the number of reissues, several of them quite recent. Still in the fictional sphere, it is worth mentioning A casa verde, signed by A. Julinto, the product of a partnership with her husband and published in the Jornal do Comércio (Rio de Janeiro, 1827–2016) between December 1898 and March of the following year, but only released in 1932 as a volume by Companhia Editora Nacional.20 A. Julinto (pseudonym of Júlia and Filinto de Almeida), A casa verde (São Paulo: Companhia Editorial Nacional, 1932). It should be noted that, in this case, the pseudonym was not intended to mask the authors’ identity, which was immediately identified by their contemporaries and which they assumed.

Almeida, unlike Maria Benedita Câmara Bormann, enjoyed a long literary and journalistic career, passing away in 1934 at the age of seventy-one. This allowed her to develop significant expertise in the publishing market and with Brazilian officials over the years. She targeted both the nascent children’s literature market and the more traditional world of conduct books, which were very much in vogue at the time. Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho also targeted these markets with her works: Mulheres e crianças: notas sobre educação (1880), Cartas a Luiza: moral, educação, costumes (1886), Cartas a uma noiva (1889), and A arte de viver na sociedade (1895). Although printed in Portugal, these publications circulated widely in Brazil.21 Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, Mulheres e crianças: notas sobre educação (Porto: Joaquim Antunes Leitão & Irmão, 1880); Cartas a Luísa. Moral, educação e costumes (Porto: Barros e Filha, 1886); Cartas a uma noiva (2nd edn, Lisbon: Livraria Editora Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, 1899); A arte de viver na sociedade (Lisboa: Livraria António Maria Pereira, 1895). On the success of the manuals and guides on a wide variety of subjects and aimed particularly at women, see: Maria de Lourdes Eleutério, Vidas de romance. As mulheres e o exercício de escrever no entresséculos (1980–1930) (Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks, 2005), pp. 71–93. In 1896, Almeida published Livro das noivas, through Tipografia da Companhia Nacional. She followed it with Livro das donas e donzelas in 1906, which was richly illustrated and gained multiple editions from Livraria Editora Francisco Alves.22 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, Livro das noivas (3rd edn, Rio de Janeiro: Tipografia da Companhia Nacional, 1896) and Livro das donas e das donzelas (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Editora Francisco Alves, 1906). Some of the chronicles printed in ‘A moda’ were reproduced in Livro das donas e donzelas, as can be seen in Table 3.2:

The list in Table 3.2 shows that Almeida, like her male colleagues, was able to migrate her texts from periodical to books, which guaranteed them a longer life than afforded by volatile newspaper and magazine pages. However, with the exception of the Portuguese publisher and Companhia Editora Nacional, the latter in the 1930s, the novels published up to 1901 bore the stamp of small companies without much resonance in the publishing world. It was not until 1903, when she was no longer writing the ‘A moda’ column, that her book of short stories Ânsia eterna was published by Garnier,23 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, Ânsia eterna (Rio de Janeiro: H. Garnier, 1903). The first issue is available at <https://digital.bbm.usp.br/handle/bbm/2441> [accessed 9 Oct. 2023]. which, nonetheless, did not prevent her from becoming an unavoidable name on the literary scene of her time. Her educational books soon attracted the attention of important publishers in Rio de Janeiro: Contos infantis, originally launched in Lisbon, as mentioned earlier, and adopted in schools, had several editions printed by Laemmert and later by Francisco Alves, which also published Histórias da nossa terra (1907), while Jacinto Ribeiro dos Santos printed Era uma vez … in 1917, which points to the interest of the publishing market when it came to works for schools.24 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, Era uma vez … (Rio de Janeiro: Jacinto Ribeiro dos Santos printed, 1917); Histórias da nossa terra. 6a edição revista e aumentada (Rio de Janeiro: Francisco Alves & Cia Aillaud, Alves & Cia, [1907] 1911).

In the interview that the Almeida couple granted to João do Rio in 1905, at a time when they occupied a solid position in the literate world, when asked which of her works she liked best, the writer chose one that had not yet been published in book form, A Casa Verde, with a justification that referred to their marital happiness: ‘because it was written in collaboration with my husband. A casa verde reminds me of a lot of happy times’.25 Rio, O momento literário, p. 73. The title is an explicit reference to the family home in the Santa Teresa neighbourhood, with its large gardens, which Almeida looked after personally. In 1904, Almeida and Filinto built a house that featured beautiful gardens where they hosted their friends. This open-air space came to be known as the Salão Verde (Green Room), frequented by many esteemed figures in the cultural realm: Coelho Neto, Olavo Bilac, João Luso, Luís Edmundo, Artur e Aluísio Azevedo, Raimundo Correa, Alberto de Oliveira, Rodolfo Amoedo, Antônio Parreiras, Eliseu Visconti.26 For details of the receptions and guests in the Green Room see: Hilda Machado, Laurinda dos Santos Lobo. Mecenas, artistas e outros marginais em Santa Teresa (Rio de Janeiro: Casa da Palavra, 2002) and Costruba, ‘Para além do sufragismo: A contribuição de Júlia Lopes de Almeida à história do feminismo no Brasil (1892–1934)’, pp. 125–150.

It is noteworthy that, as a ‘semi-public space, situated between the home and the street, the literary salon was one of the few territories where women enjoyed a recognised place, and where they effectively developed original forms of sociability around literary exercise and debate’.27 Heloísa Buarque Hollanda and Lucia Nascimento Araújo, Ensaístas brasileiras. Mulheres que escreveram sobre literatura e artes de 1860 a 1991 (Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 1993), p. 21. Indeed, it is well known that women were banned from attending literary dinners at the time, as well as from being admitted to the Brazilian Academy of Letters, a decision that was only reversed eighty years after its foundation, when Raquel de Queiroz was elected in 1977.

While she was responsible for the fashion column, Almeida established herself as a writer and even achieved significant financial success, without ceasing, as far as is known, to write the texts published in the periodical press. The family also grew: Albano (1894), Margarida (1896), and Lucia (1897) were born. The stances adopted by the author, however, did not escape criticism. In 1909, when Garnier launched O momento literário, João do Rio made several additions to the interviews he had conducted in 1905 for the newspaper Gazeta de Notícias. One of them was the chapter that closes the book and in which he made references to the author, laced with subtle irony:

Almeida made history by becoming the first woman to join the select group of intellectuals who took part in the literary conferences organised by Medeiros and Albuquerque. As a renowned writer with several published books and a frequent contributor to Rio de Janeiro’s main newspapers and magazines, she chose the theme ‘The Fashion Empire’ for her first conference, which was no coincidence. Almeida was recognised as a true expert on the subject due to her column in O País. Three years later, when she received the invitation, she was certainly convinced that this topic would captivate a diverse audience. News of the conference spread quickly and was widely covered by Rio’s main newspapers.

In one of her chronicles, Carmen Dolores commented that she was going to attend Almeida’s literary conference:

Presenting at such literary conferences represented an opportunity to achieve undisputed prestige in the intellectual circles of Rio de Janeiro and, as Carmen Dolores writes, Almeida was one of the first women to conquer these spaces. Such recognition and social acceptance as a writer came about partly due to what Fanini called her ‘conciliatory spirit’, that is, her ability to reconcile motherhood with a successful literary career.31 Fanini, ‘Júlia Lopes de Almeida: entre o salão literário e a antessala da Academia Brasileira de Letras’, p. 323. Navigating between the competing demands of motherhood and artistic fulfilment made her acceptable to a local intelligentsia that, although self-consciously progressive, often harboured reservations about the prospect of women’s emancipation.

Returning to the question of the pseudonym, the profile of Ecila Worms was constructed in the first chronicles with great detail and care to distinguish Almeida from Ecila both physically and psychologically. Ecila Worms is thirty-two years old, single, short, blonde, thrifty, greedy, and feels more comfortable discussing fashion than art.32 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, ‘A moda’ [O País, 29 Mar. 1892, p. 1] in Júlia de Lopes Almeida (pseudonym Ecila Worms), A moda (1892–1901), p. 42. To give her authority on fashion, the author ascribes to Ecila ‘an exquisite taste, acquired in Paris, a long education in a fashion designer’s atelier (Mme. Lucian Dorelle, on a Parisian boulevard)’. Moreover, the girl is ‘a bit of a chatterbox’, has the habit, acquired in Paris, of ‘being lovely to everyone’, of calling her readers her friends and mixing her language ‘with French and Gallic turns of phrase’.33 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, ‘A moda’ [O País, 24 Feb. 1892, p. 1], Júlia de Lopes Almeida (pseudonym Ecila Worms), A moda (1892–1901), p. 35. With all these characteristics, Almeida sets the tone for her new journalistic endeavour, of an intimate conversation with readers about various fashion-related issues. Even if Ecila was a little arrogant and opinionated, after all, she had a ‘snub nose’34 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, ‘A moda’ [O País, 14 Jun. 1892, p. 1], in Júlia de Lopes Almeida (pseudonym Ecila Worms), A moda (1892–1901), p. 48. and ‘the intention of judging what I see fit to’,35 Júlia Lopes de Almeida, ‘A moda’ [O País, 24 Feb. 1892, p. 1], in Júlia de Lopes Almeida (pseudonym Ecila Worms), A moda (1892–1901), p. 35. the column promised to be light, unpretentious, varied, full of humour and irony, especially towards the end of the series, when a tension between the writer and her readers became evident, precisely because many of her texts were completely devoid of the subject of fashion, as we shall see below. Over time, however, the differences between Ecila Worms and Almeida faded.

In addition to the fact that the author featured in various publications, which would justify the then widespread practice of using a pseudonym, the very nature of the column, rather than its theme, may have been the key element in the decision. O País did not publish fashion plates and illustrations, so it was up to Ecila Worms to comment on clothes and accessories based on what had already been published in specialised Brazilian and foreign magazines, as she herself stated on many occasions. The theme, which was aimed specifically at women, was in line with the newspaper’s interest in widening its readership to include women.

As we know, Almeida knew the publishing market well and must have been aware that, given the column’s content tended to relate to the here and now, the texts had little chance of being transformed into a book as they were published in the newspaper, since they would require extensive intervention to remove references to patterns published in other magazines, whether national, which the reader could have in hand, or foreign, a resource that could not be repeated in book format. The task was certainly not impossible, as Ecila Worms herself declared, even though the project never materialised:

Bringing together the fashion columns into a book would require significant rewriting, including the incorporation, as she herself admits, of iconographic material that was absent from the newspaper. It is worth remembering that the practice of republishing what had appeared in newspapers and magazines, which was quite common at the time, was advantageous from an economic point of view, as it meant receiving money for texts already printed in and paid for by periodicals, in addition to the perpetuity and legitimacy that only books ensured. It is no coincidence that only eleven of the 105 chronicles she signed were reused, meaning that it seems reasonable to assume that, thinking logically, she decided to preserve the name Júlia Lopes de Almeida and use Ecila Worms, even though the character never gained any real autonomy.