This Craft of Verse. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures 1967–1968.

First edition. Sm. 4to. Pp. [vi], 154, b/w photograph, notes, index. Quarter-bound russet cloth over orange paper boards, titled in black to spine. Small print run.

The six Charles Elliot Norton Lectures delivered at Harvard University in the fall of 1967 and spring of 1968, and transcribed from tapes only recently discovered. Though his avowed topic is poetry, Borges explores subjects ranging from prose forms (especially the novel), literary history, and translation theory to philosophical aspects of literature in particular and communication in general.

Probably the best-read citizen of the globe in his day, he draws on a wealth of examples from literature in modern and medieval English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew and Chinese, speaking with characteristic eloquence on Plato, the Norse kenningar, Byron, Poe, Chesterton, Joyce and Frost, as well as on translations of Homer, the Bible, and the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

"If any writer could publish from the grave, you'd expect it to be Borges: master fabulist, patron of paradox, imaginative rebel, gentle tour guide to life's labyrinths." –Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer