Os parceiros do Rio Bonito, by Antonio Candido, is a classic of the social sciences in Brazil, yet it does not fit easily within the parameters of the São Paulo school of sociology. This paper discusses the relation of Parceiros to multiple contexts: Candido’s reliance on The German Ideology and mid-twentieth-century anthropology, his critical response to easily recognizable representations of the São Paulo countryside, together with the echoes of Mário de Andrade’s research on folklore on this work. It proceeds to discuss the place of Parceiros in Antonio Candido’s overall intellectual trajectory. From the 1960s on, Candido sought to develop an “integrative criticism,” working predominantly with the essay form. Parceiros, together with the equally influential Formação da literatura brasileira, belong to an earlier moment in his career, when Candido presented his arguments more systematically, developing them mostly within the accepted boundaries of academic disciplines.