Barreto's mother, Amália Augusta, died when he was very young, and he was subsequently sent to study at a private school run by Teresa Pimentel do Amaral.

Soon after he graduated, he entered the Escola Politécnica do Rio de Janeiro, but was forced to abandon it in 1904 in order to take care of his brothers, since his father's mental health was starting to deteriorate.

[4] During the last years of his life, Barreto was attacked by heavy bouts of depression, which led him to alcoholism and many visits to different psychiatric hospitals and sanatoriums.

Psychopathy is presented in his posthumous book Clara dos Anjos through the antagonist, Cassi Jones, who has typical habits of a social psychopath: absence of care for other people's feelings, selfishness and cold calculation to achieve his goals, no matter how vile they are.

The story, then, can be divided in three distinct parts: A collection of tales that Lima Barreto published in newspaper during the period of 20 years, approximately.

Lima Barreto decided to create a new country to represent Brazil in order to escape from politician and any other authority's persecution.

In this case, the "Samoiedas' school" is an allegory to the Brazilian classical writing style, which was still heavily influenced by the Parnassianism and Symbolism.

This posthumous novel presents the character Clara dos Anjos, a girl from a poor family that lives in the suburb of Rio de Janeiro.

In his book, Barreto intends to show how disgraced is the destiny of poor women in Brazil, as he demonstrates in Clara's last quote: "We are nothing in this life".