‘The Garden of Forking Paths’, [in] Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 12, No. 57 (August 1948)

140x192mm; pp. 144

A very good copy of this fragile publication: front cover with a faint streak; rear cover lightly browned; paper age toned as always; stapled binding strong, corners and edges good; internally excellent. Scarce in this condition

'The Garden of Forking Paths' is one of Borges' most famous stories, and has been hailed as the first 'hypertext' narrative. It is the title story in the collection El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan (1941), and its 1948 publication here, in Anthony Boucher's translation, marks Borges English-language debut.

'The Garden of Forking Paths' discusses the fictional writer Ts'ui Pên, who has created a vast labyrinth-like novel in which all possible plot variations occur and interweave. Such a novel is of course impossible, but has been taken by many theorists of 'new media' as a prescient discussion of the narrative possibilities of cyberspace. The idea of an 'infinite' text was explored by Borges a number of times, notably in 'The Library of Babel' and 'The Book of Sand'.