The Baron (Portuguese: O Barão) is a 1942 postmodern novella by Branquinho da Fonseca originally published under his pen name António Madeira.

[1] The plot revolves around a visiting school inspector who encounters an eccentric and moody baron living in a medieval manor house.

The narrator, a Lisbon-based elementary school inspector who dislikes his job, arrives in a village in Serra do Barroso and meets a female teacher, who promptly sends a message up the mountain to the Baron.

[1] David Mourão-Ferreira notes that the first part was more realistic and the transition to the mythic brings out the plot's multidimensionality, which parallels that of the titular character.

[3] Maria Aparecida Santilli has pointed out the Baron's dual-personality: one capable of platonic love and one that impulsively exploits women.

Leland Guyer interprets the work as an intertext of the medieval Spanish poem Dark Night of the Soul by San Juan de la Cruz.