INQUISICIONES. Signed [Signed 1st Edition ]

Edition: 1st Edition

Book Description

Buenos Aires: Proa, imprenta El Inca, 1925 Inscribed by Borges to the important Argentine writer, Nora Lange. First edition, A very good copy with some general foxing - modern cloth, gilt lettered red spine labels [originally issued only in paperback]. [Helft p.28; Becco 50], 8vo, Buenos Aires, Proa, imprenta El Inca, 1925 The presentation inscription to Lange (Oliverio Girondo's wife) in his fastidious early hand reads: "a la aureolada Nora, muy / cordialmente - / Georgie". A note in pencil below the inscriptions apparently written by Nora Lange's sister; reads in translation: "He could not have found a better adjective for you." Borges used his affectionate diminutive "Georgie", only with his Mother & other close family & friends. This is Borges' first collection of essays. The publication was limited to 500 copies & it was never reissued. Inquisiciones already contains the seminal concerns that Borges would follow for the rest of his writing life. It was never reprinted, however Borges followed it with Otras In quisiciones, his most important collection of essays. In Inquisiciones, Borges is firmly rooted in two traditions, both classic & modern. The first is Hispanic, from Quevedo "perfecto en las metáforas, en las antítesis, en la adjetivación, es decir, en aquellas disciplinas de la literatura cuya felicidad o malandanza es discernible por la inteligencia" (perfect in metaphores, in antithesis, in adjectivation, that is to say, in those disciplines of literature whose felicitous or erroneous usage is discernable by the intellect), & Torre Villaruel to Unamuno, Herrera Reissig, & Ramón Gómez de la Serna & Cansinos Asséns. The second tradition is Anglo-Saxon, from Thomas Browne " un ensayo bastante malo, tal vez el primero que se escribió sobr e él en idioma español". ( a rather bad essay … perhaps the first that was written about him in Spanish) [Autobiografía, p.80]) to Joyce, including the idealist philosophy of Berkeley. The Germanic tradition is also present with a translation of 3 poems: "Soy culpable de la españilización de los versos". (I am guilty of the Spanish translation of these verses). It is in "Examen de metáforas" where Borges manifests the formulation of his own rhetoric which governed his writing through his Ultra ist years to his later works. However years later he retracts this essay: "basta un solo buen verso no metafórico para probar que la metáfora no es un elemento esencial Otro (ensayo) casificaba las metáforas como si se pudiera prescindir sin problem a de otros elementos poéticos, por ejemplo el ritmo y la música". (A single good verse without a metaphor is sufficient to prove that the metaphor is not an essential element. Another (essay) classified metaphors as if one could do away with other p oetic elements without any problem, rhythm and music, for example). [Autobiografía, p.80]. A wonderful copy. . 1st Edition.