Originally conceived as a Portuguese-English phrase book, this literary curiosity was written by an author who, remarkably, spoke no English. With the help of a pair of dictionaries, Pedro Carolino translated a series of expressions from his native Portuguese into French and from French into English. The result is a volume of unintentional hilarity, praised by Mark Twain in his appreciative Introduction for its "miraculous stupidities." Imagine the Portuguese traveler, with this book in hand, offering grooming tips, " Dress your hairs ," making polite dinner conversation, " Like you the soup? " and inviting an acquaintance to take a walk, " Let us go to respire the air ." The collection is organized into sections of familiar phrases, familiar dialogues, and familiar letters -- which might not strike the native English speaker as particularly familiar, concluding with a selection of humorous anecdotes. As Twain observed, "In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness, and its enchanting naïvete are as supreme and unapproachable, in their way, as are Shakespeare's sublimities."