BORGES (JORGE LUIS)
El Aleph, FIRST EDITION, THE AUTHOR'S SIGNED AND ANNOTATED COPY, with the author's signature on the title-page, his ink emendations on 22 pages, the otherwise blank 'Indice' page at the end filled with a list of quotes from the book (this also signed), and underscoring throughout, varying degrees of browning to text, untrimmed in publisher's illustrated olive wrappers over limp boards, extremities rubbed, some staining mainly to spine and lower wrapper [Becco 37; Loewenstein 355; Vallely 112], 8vo, Buenos Aires, Editorial Losada, 1949
Footnotes:
BORGES'S ANNOTATED COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE ALEPH, his 'second great gathering of Ficciones, a worthy successor to the first, and the confirmation of Borges' international stature... Borges himself conceded that, along with Ficciones [1944], this was his major book' (Charles Vallely, Jorge Luis Borges. A Catalogue of Unique Books and Manuscripts, Lame Duck Books, 2003). The collection comprises thirteen short stories and an epilogue, including the famous title story, which was first published in the magazine Sur in September 1945, and Deutsches Requiem, a manuscript of which is included in the present sale.

In the present copy Borges has underscored words, phrases and sentences on over 50 pages, with authorial deletions and corrections on 22 of them, ranging from a single word to a longer phrase. On the page with the printed heading 'Indice' at the end, he adds a list of 10 phrases taken from the book, with their page references. The corrections and this list appear not to have found their way into modern editions (although it has not been possible to consult the 1952 augmented second edition), but Borges was famous for endlessly revisiting, revising and annotating his manuscripts and books: 'There is no such thing as a first reading; for Borges, a first writing... His texts are always rewritten, never (I think) given once and for all... He insistently declares that texts are not finished, because they need to be completed by generations of readers. I take it that he also thinks that no writer ever really finishes anything' (Daniel Balderston, How Borges Wrote, University of Virginia Press, 2018).

Provenance: Private collection.
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Some wear to edges of covers, front cover with a couple of small damp spots, spine and lower cover stained. Text block browned throughout, occasionally heavily.