A BRAZILIAN MYSTIC

This kind of book is bound to find its way, and shortly, to an old bookstall, there to be sold with other bargains for a penny... for it treats of unfamiliar people and of a life unknown and unsuspected by the general. -from the Preface Wild with flamboyant prose and content to document an extraordinary life with as much vigor as it was lived, Cunninghame Grahams 1919 biography of Antonio Vicente Mendes Maciel-also called Anthony the Counselor-is as unconventional as its subject. A tax protester, itinerant preacher, and general nuisance to both the Brazilian government and the religious establishment, Antonio entrenched himself, 1893 and with, eventually, more than 30,000 followers, in the town of Canudos, which he founded. What led him to that point, and what transpired afterward (hint