Eça's first work was a series of prose poems, published in the Gazeta de Portugal magazine, which eventually appeared in book form in a posthumous collection edited by Batalha Reis entitled Prosas Bárbaras ("Barbarous texts").

He worked as a journalist at Évora, then returned to Lisbon and, with his former school friend Ramalho Ortigão and others, created the Correspondence of the fictional adventurer Fradique Mendes.

In 1869 and 1870, Eça de Queiroz travelled to Egypt and watched the opening of the Suez Canal, which inspired several of his works, most notably O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra ("The Mystery of the Sintra Road", 1870), written in collaboration with Ramalho Ortigão, in which Fradique Mendes appears.

The work was strongly influenced by Memorie di Giuda ("Memoirs of Judas") by Ferdinando Petruccelli della Gattina, such as to lead some scholars to accuse the Portuguese writer of plagiarism.

[7] His diplomatic duties included the dispatch of detailed reports to the Portuguese foreign office concerning the unrest in the Northumberland and Durham coalfields – in which, as he points out, the miners earned twice as much as those in South Wales, along with free housing and a weekly supply of coal.

He published the second version of O Crime de Padre Amaro in 1876 and another celebrated novel, O Primo Basílio ("Cousin Bazilio") in 1878, as well as working on a number of other projects.

[9] He had actively sought the position of Portuguese consul-general in Paris and, having obtained it in 1888, remained in post for the rest of his life.

Since 2002 English versions of eight of his novels and two volumes of novellas and short stories, translated by Margaret Jull Costa, have been published in the UK by Dedalus Books.

[12] And the third, again by RTP Rádio e Televisão de Portugal in 2015 as a 4 episode TV Series (that has also a condensed theatrical movie version).

Amaro is played by José Condessa, star of Netflix international Hit Turn of the Tide (TV series) Eça's works have been also adapted on Brazilian television.

The movie was more centered on Eça's and Ramalho Ortigão's writing and publishing of the original serial and the controversy it created and less around the book's plot itself.

[21] The film cost a million and a half euros,[22] having €600,000 from the Instituto do Cinema e Audiovisual (ICA), €170,000 from Câmara Municipal de Lisboa, €120,000 from Agência Nacional do Cinema (Ancine, the Brazilian akin from ICA), and a good part from Montepio Geral, as well as the purchase by RTP of the rights for the mini-series.