FERNANDO PESSOA (1888-1935), Portugal's greatest poet since Camões, is one of Europe's greatest poets too. When he died he left a trunk full of poetry, philosophical writings, criticism and other texts. There are 25,426 items in the archive, including those that constitute The Book of Disquietude.

Carcanet was the first English-language publisher of Fernando Pessoa in 1971. In 1992 Carcanet published Richard Zenith's translation of The Book of Disquietude.