Books

First edition, sole printing, of the author's scarce first collection of short stories. Many of the stories for which Borges is best remembered appear here, including "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote", "La lotería en Babilonia", and "La biblioteca de Babel". After two decades publishing mostly poetry and literary criticism, Borges turned his imagination to short story writing while working as an assistant in the Miguel Cané Municipal Library. He dispatched his librarian's duties in an hour, in order to spend the rest of the day in the basement writing. El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan was later republished with an additional six stories as Ficciones (1944), which won Borges international acclaim. Octavo. Original blue wrappers, lettered in white. Housed in a custom blue leather folding box. Neat inscription ("17.9.71 - 12:05 en el ómnibus") to final page of text. Spine slightly toned, a few short splits to ends, extremities rubbed, contents toned but clean. An unusually well-preserved, near-fine copy. Foster A72.1.