16
16 BORGES, Jorge Luis. Luna de enfrente. Buenos Aires: Editorial Proa, 1925 “And, in the end, what matters is poetry” First edition, first printing, number 74 of 300 copies only, a superb presentation copy of Borges’s scarce second collection of poetry, inscribed by the author on the half-title to fellow Argentine poet Horacio A. Rega Molina (1899–1957), “al mejor imaginero de nuestra poesia, don Horacio Rega Molina – muy cordialmente Jorge Luis Borges” (“to the most imaginative of our poets, Horacio Rega Molina, very affectionately Jorge Luis Borges”). Borges has also added two small corrections to the text on pages 24 and 37. Rega Molina was born in the same year as Borges and was the protégé of Leopoldo Lugones. He published a sequence of youthful collections from 1919, and in the year of this book’s publication won the Buenos Aires Municipal Award for Poetry (which may account for Borges’s praise of him as the “ mejor imaginero de nuestra poesia”). Borges would include Rega Molina’s poetry in his Antologia poetica Argentina (1941). Remembering Rega Molina in later life, Borges clearly upheld this high regard: “¡Un excelente poeta! ¡Un admirable poeta! Uno de los mejores poetas argentinos. Claro, personalmente no era
grato . . . Su poesía era muy superior a su diálogo, digamos. En el diálogo era cortante, fácilmente arrabalero; pero cuando escribía, no: era un poeta de una gran delicadeza. Y, al fin de todo, lo que importa es la poesía” (“An excellent poet! An admirable poet! One of the best Argentine poets. Of course, as a person he was rather ungracious . . . His poetry was far superior to his conversation, shall we say. In dialogue, he was brash, obviously suburban; but when he wrote, no: he was a poet of great delicacy. And, in the end, what matters is poetry”) (Borges & Carrizo, pp. 265–6). Luna de enfrente was Borges’s second poetry collection, and third publication overall, following the rare poetry collection Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923), and Inquisiciones (1925), a collection of essays. It was published with woodcut illustrations by his sister Norah Borges. Quarto. Original black cloth-backed yellow boards, front cover with lettering in black and pictorial design by Norah Borges blocked in red, edges untrimmed. Housed in a custom black leather-backed folding case, with spine lettered in red. Wood-engraved vignettes to half-title, and to title, limitation, and colophon pages by Norah Borges. Light rubbing to spine ends, wear to extremities with some recolouring, yellow boards somewhat dust-soiled, patch of paper restoration to one corner of half-title not affecting text, otherwise internally clean, overall a very good copy. ¶ Jorges Luis Borges & Antonio Carrizo, Borges el memorioso, 1982. £15,000 [155193]
ONLY CONNECT
12
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker