first edition
1940 · Bueno Aires
by Borges, Jorge Luis; Ocampo, Silvina; Casares, Adolfo Bioy
Bueno Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1940. First printing. Very good.. First edition of this anthology of short fantasy pieces assembled and edited by Borges, Ocampo, and Casares. Ursula K. Leguin writes in the introduction to the Viking edition of THE BOOK OF FANTASY [ANTOLOGIA DE LA LITERATURA FANTASTICA] that the idea for the book came about "one night in Buenos Aires in 1937 when three friends sat talking together about fantastic literature," drawing parallels to the infamous night when "the first great modern fantasy" FRANKENSTEIN was conceived. In creating this anthology, Borges, Ocampo, and Casares were implicitly pioneering a definition of fantasy (truncated)