La Biblioteca di Babele

The idea of devoting a series to fantastic fiction emerged in the early Seventies from the friendship between Franco Maria Ricci and Jorge Luis Borges, who agreed to “reconstruct” for him his personal library, the books to which he was most fondly attached as a reader and a man of letters. 

Again we find the names always cited by Borges: James, London, Chesterton, Kafka, Poe; the copious Eastern sources side by side with the classics of our own culture. He has chosen the most extraordinary stories by each author, often true rediscoveries. 

Each volume opens with an introduction by Borges, a small masterpiece about how to read a masterpiece, an illuminating glimpse into the literary world of the greatest librarian of modem times. The Biblioteca di Babele is bound in heavy blue lngres paper, and printed in Bodoni type on Fabriano laid paper. The covers, with their f antastic and bizarre combinations of colors and images, enrich the contents with an extraordinary repertory of images.