The Study of Chronology and History seems to be one of the most
natural Delights of the Human mind. It is not easy to live without
enquiring by what Means every thing was brought into the State in
which we now behold it, or without finding in the Mind some
Desire of being informed concerning the Generations of Mankind,
that have been in Possession of the World before us, whether they
were better or worse than ourselves […]. History can only be made
intelligible by some knowledge of Chronology, the Science by
which Events are ranged in their Order, and the Periods of
Computation are settled; and which therefore assists the Memory
by Method, and enlighten Judgment, by showing the Dependence
of one Transaction on another.
(Samuel Johnson, “Preface”, in Robert Dudley, The Preceptor, vol.1, London, 1758: xx).

Introduction
Being the oldest country in Europe, Portugal has an ancient literary tradition, which, from the first half of the fifteenth century (1415) onwards, expanded to the territories that nowadays form the Lusophone world, from Macau to Brazil.This Chronology of Portuguese Literature, the first to be published in any language, aims to be representative in terms of genres and types of texts, as no published reference work can ever be exhaustive. I am sure it will be a useful reference tool and a first contact point with Portuguese Literature for non-Portuguese readers, students and researchers from all over the world. A chronology is always based on a selection of works and dates, and the present one does not, of course, list all the works from each author, but their most important literary productions, showing tendencies, topics and themes in Portuguese Literature throughout the centuries, since the very early texts written in Latin and Portuguese even before 1143 up to 2000, the beginning of the current millennium. A work of this nature is based on the researcher’s use of other (reference) resources such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, Literature Histories, and even smaller chronologies dedicated to specific literary periods. I had to be selective (sometimes subjective), and am aware that many titles considered important and influential by some readers are not mentioned, and that the ones listed don’t all have the same importance or literary merit. I tried to look beyond the canon.
When known, the authors’s birth and death dates are always indicated, and the list of writers and their several works published in one same year are listed alphabetically. Pseudonyms and heteronyms are always indicated in the first reference to the respective authors. Mistakes in dates may have been copied from other reference works or inadvertedly made, and they are entirely my responsibility; the only way to avoid them would be to produce nothing at all. When in doubt I consulted the Portuguese National Library catalogue to obtain accurate dates from one single source. All spelling in ancient titles was modernised and works published in Spanish by Portuguese authors maintained their original titles.
Many medieval manuscripts were only published centuries later, so I have indicated the date of the writing rather than publication of those early texts, while the date of later works is, when possible, the one of the very first edition, the moment when the work reached its public. For instance Padre António Vieira’s sermons were listed according to the date of the preaching rather than the date of their writing (in many cases unknown) or of the later publication. Information regarding authorship and dates of some medieval texts have changed and will keep changing as new studies bring more facts to light, so I hope this can be the first of many chronologies; and future ones will no doubt include many of the works and authors which were left out in this one. This book, like Portuguese Literature, is a work in progress. A Chronology of the Literature of the oldest European country will always be incomplete, as it would (obviously) be impossible to include all the works by all the Portuguese writers. I can only aim to present the reader with a representative list in which there will always be something missing.
Last but not least, I would like to thank the two research assistants who helped me to gather the data and turn it into this chronology: Patrícia Germano and Bruno Lopes Fernandes. Without their help this would have been impossible. I especially thank the encouragement that I received from the students who attended my Portuguese History, Literature and Culture classes at the University of Macau (2007-2009) and showed me the need for the publication of such a chronology when I had given up publishing it.

Rogério Miguel Puga
Macau, 26-02-2011

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Rogério Miguel Puga holds a PhD in Anglo-Portuguese Studies (FCSH) from  the Universidade Nova de Lisboa,  and is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS), as well as a professor at the same university.  He is a research collaborator at Centre for Overseas History (CHAM), the Centre for Comparative Studies, and a visiting researcher at the University of Macau (History Department). 
Dr. Puga  has published several studies on Anglo-Portuguese literary and historical relations, the Portuguese and British Empires, and on Lusophone and Anglophone Literatures, namely: The Portuguese Historical Novel (Lisbon, 2006), A World of Euphemism: Representations of Macao in the Work of Austin Coates. City of Broken Promises as Historical Novel and Female Bildungsroman (Lisbon, 2009), and The English Presence and Anglo-Portuguese Relations in Macao (1635-1794) (Lisbon, 2009). He is the editor of the European Journal of Macao Studies (Portugal), and subject editor for the journal Romance Studies (United Kingdom).