{"id":81105,"date":"2014-12-23T15:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T20:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=81105"},"modified":"2014-12-22T10:58:47","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T15:58:47","slug":"the-missing-borges-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Missing Borges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of\u00a0Borges\u2019s early poems <\/em><em>was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy?<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_69808\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69808\" class=\" wp-image-69808\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png\" alt=\"Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963 Alicia D'Amico\" width=\"600\" height=\"559\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-69808\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jorge Luis Borges in 1963. Photo: Alicia D&#8217;Amico<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The world of rare books and manuscripts is full of intrigues, betrayals, and frauds. Alberto Casares has lived in this world for decades; as the president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Buenos Aires, he\u2019s an expert on the subject. He\u2019s got the <i>physique du r\u00f4l<\/i>: a gray, messy beard; a soft body; an intense and wary look.<\/p>\n<p>A few months ago, Casares was offered a seventeenth-century original edition of <i>Don Quixote<\/i> for one million euros. He recognized it as a well-known forgery from the nineteenth century, worth no more than \u20ac200,000. The seller took it away, determined to find a more unsuspecting client, and Casares was left alone with the melancholy of having lost something that was never his to own.<\/p>\n<p>What would some people give to own it? Casares told me, \u201cBibliographers are willing to commit crimes to follow their mad desire to own things.\u201d He was thinking of a former client, Daniel Pastore, a collector of rare books and first editions, heir to a pharmaceutical fortune and owner of Imago Mundi, Buenos Aires\u2019s most elegant antiquarian bookshop, which closed a few years ago after a succession of international scandals involving Pastore.<\/p>\n<p>Casares was annoyed and fascinated by Pastore, who was eighteen the first time he walked into Casare\u2019s bookshop. He was handsome, rich, likeable, and learned\u2014a good client. But he was also pedantic; he claimed to know more about rare books than Casares. Sometimes he did. But not when it came to Jorge Luis Borges. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/16\/the-missing-borges\/\">Read More &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of\u00a0Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy? The world of rare books and manuscripts is full of intrigues, betrayals, and frauds. Alberto Casares has lived in this world for decades; as the president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Buenos [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16464],"tags":[13576,362,13575,10885,13572,13574,13573,2476,9534,8252,12251],"class_list":["post-81105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2014","tag-alberto-casares","tag-argentina","tag-argentina-national-library","tag-buenos-aires","tag-counterfeits","tag-fervor-de-buenos-aires","tag-forgeries","tag-jorge-luis-borges","tag-manuscripts","tag-rare-books","tag-theft"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Missing Borges<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Missing Borges by Graciela Mochkofsky\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"December 23, 2014 \u2013 Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of\u00a0Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy? The world of rare\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-12-23T20:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"958\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Graciela Mochkofsky\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Graciela Mochkofsky\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Graciela Mochkofsky\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/677ba313925baa4bf1f53c33ed324434\"},\"headline\":\"The Missing Borges\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-23T20:00:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\"},\"wordCount\":299,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png\",\"keywords\":[\"Alberto Casares\",\"Argentina\",\"Argentina National Library\",\"Buenos Aires\",\"counterfeits\",\"Fervor de Buenos Aires\",\"forgeries\",\"Jorge Luis Borges\",\"manuscripts\",\"rare books\",\"theft\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Best of 2014\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\",\"name\":\"The Missing Borges\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-12-23T20:00:28+00:00\",\"description\":\"Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico.png\",\"width\":1618,\"height\":1515},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Missing Borges\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/677ba313925baa4bf1f53c33ed324434\",\"name\":\"Graciela Mochkofsky\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ecaef405e6c7d81c7071634f3fff972bb728ec0b65fe0521e9e71488a9fda6a8?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ecaef405e6c7d81c7071634f3fff972bb728ec0b65fe0521e9e71488a9fda6a8?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Graciela Mochkofsky\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/gmochkofsky\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Missing Borges","description":"Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Missing Borges by Graciela Mochkofsky","og_description":"December 23, 2014 \u2013 Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of\u00a0Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy? The world of rare","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2014-12-23T20:00:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":958,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Graciela Mochkofsky","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Graciela Mochkofsky","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/"},"author":{"name":"Graciela Mochkofsky","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/677ba313925baa4bf1f53c33ed324434"},"headline":"The Missing Borges","datePublished":"2014-12-23T20:00:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/"},"wordCount":299,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png","keywords":["Alberto Casares","Argentina","Argentina National Library","Buenos Aires","counterfeits","Fervor de Buenos Aires","forgeries","Jorge Luis Borges","manuscripts","rare books","theft"],"articleSection":["Best of 2014"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/","name":"The Missing Borges","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico-1024x958.png","datePublished":"2014-12-23T20:00:28+00:00","description":"Seven years ago, a stolen first edition of Borges\u2019s early poems was returned to Argentina\u2019s National Library. But was it the right copy?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jorge_Luis_Borges_1963-Alicia-DAmico.png","width":1618,"height":1515},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/the-missing-borges-2\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Missing Borges"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/677ba313925baa4bf1f53c33ed324434","name":"Graciela Mochkofsky","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ecaef405e6c7d81c7071634f3fff972bb728ec0b65fe0521e9e71488a9fda6a8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ecaef405e6c7d81c7071634f3fff972bb728ec0b65fe0521e9e71488a9fda6a8?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Graciela Mochkofsky"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/gmochkofsky\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81105"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81105\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81106,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81105\/revisions\/81106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}