The Teixeira de Mattos Sampaio e Mendes family was of Portuguese Jewish origin, having been driven out of Portugal to the Netherlands by Holy Office persecution.

He worked as a freelance translator, as the London correspondent of a Dutch newspaper, and as the editor of the papers Dramatic Opinions and The Candid Friend, and, in collaboration with Leonard Smithers, in publishing.

[5] In addition to the later works of Maeterlinck, his translations include works by Émile Zola, Alexis de Tocqueville, Maurice Leblanc, Gaston Leroux, François René de Chateaubriand, Paul Kruger, Carl Ewald, Georgette Leblanc, Stijn Streuvels, and Louis Couperus.

[10] Teixeira was known to his acquaintances as a dandy and a fastidious worker, keeping strictly to set hours, and was linked to the Symbolist movement thanks to his friendship and travels with Arthur Symons.

[12] Due to ill health, Teixeira traveled on a rest cure in 1920 at Crowborough and the Isle of Wight, returning to his home in Chelsea, London in spring 1921.

[13] The New York Times, in its obituary notice, called him "one of the best translators of foreign languages of the present generation.