Editorial Ochenta

Latin American classics, set again.

The first collection

Six titles, in the order they were first printed.

  1. 1 Rubén Darío Azul... 1888
  2. 2 Delmira Agustini Los cálices vacíos 1913
  3. 3 Horacio Quiroga Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte 1917
  4. 4 César Vallejo Trilce 1922
  5. 5 José Asunción Silva El libro de versos 1923
  6. 6 Alfonsina Storni Ocre 1925

The house

Ochenta reissues Latin American classics once they enter the public domain: eighty years after the author’s death, the term Colombian law sets and the strictest in the region. The name is that rule. The last two to arrive were Vallejo and Storni: both died in 1938, so their books have been free since 2019.

Each title is typeset again from its first edition, in type designed in the region, and printed on paper that will outlast us.

We keep the spelling of the first edition exactly as it was printed. Where a later edition changed a word, the note at the back says so. Where a word meant something else in its day, the note says that too.

The books are made to be read more than once: sewn so they open flat, and sized so they travel.

The first collection

Six books, one format. The covers carry only what the first title pages carried: the title, the author, the number in the series.

  1. Azul..., Rubén Darío. First printed in Valparaíso in 1888 by Imprenta y Litografía Excelsior, on light blue paper with the title in blue ink. The book that opened modernismo.
  2. Los cálices vacíos, Delmira Agustini. Montevideo, 1913, O. M. Bertani, with a foreword by Rubén Darío. Her last book published in her lifetime.
  3. Cuentos de amor de locura y de muerte, Horacio Quiroga. Buenos Aires, 1917. The title has no commas because Quiroga wanted none, and we keep it that way.
  4. Trilce, César Vallejo. Lima, 1922, printed at the workshop of the Lima penitentiary in a run of two hundred copies.
  5. El libro de versos, José Asunción Silva. Bogotá, 1923. The book Silva put together himself between 1891 and 1896, printed twenty-seven years after his death.
  6. Ocre, Alfonsina Storni. Buenos Aires, 1925, Editorial Babel. The book where her voice turns dry and exact.

Two pages to read

As they were first printed, with the spelling of the day.

Los heraldos negros

César Vallejo, 1918

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes... Yo no sé! Golpes como del odio de Dios; como si ante ellos, la resaca de todo lo sufrido se empozara en el alma... Yo no sé!

Son pocos; pero son... Abren zanjas oscuras en el rostro mas fiero y en el lomo mas fuerte. Serán talvez los potros de bárbaros atilas; o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte.

Son las caidas hondas de los Cristos del alma, de alguna fe adorable que el Destino blasfema. Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema.

Y el hombre... Pobre...pobre! Vuelve los ojos, como cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada; vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido se empoza, como charco de culpa, en la mirada.

Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes... Yo no sé!

The poem that opens Los heraldos negros, Lima, 1918, pages 3 and 4. Text from that edition as transcribed on Wikisource.

Dolor

Alfonsina Storni, 1925

Quisiera esta tarde divina de octubre Pasear por la orilla lejana del mar;

Que la arena de oro, y las aguas verdes, Y los cielos puros me vieran pasar.

Ser alta, soberbia, perfecta, quisiera, Como una romana, para concordar

Con las grandes olas, y las rocas muertas Y las anchas playas que ciñen el mar.

Con el paso lento, y los ojos fríos Y la boca muda, dejarme llevar;

Ver cómo se rompen las olas azules Contra los granitos y no parpadear;

Ver cómo las aves rapaces se comen Los peces pequeños y no despertar;

Pensar que pudieran las frágiles barcas Hundirse en las aguas y no suspirar;

Ver que se adelanta, la garganta al aire, El hombre más bello; no desear amar...

Perder la mirada, distraídamente, Perderla, y que nunca la vuelva a encontrar;

Y, figura erguida, entre cielo y playa, Sentirme el olvido perenne del mar.

From Ocre, Buenos Aires, 1925, pages 131 and 132. Text from that edition as transcribed on Wikisource.

The edition

Format
13 by 20 centimetres, around two hundred pages. Sewn signatures, flexible cloth cover, the number of the collection on the spine.
Paper
Uncoated, 90 grams, acid free, with the grain along the spine so the book opens flat and stays open.
Type
Archivo, drawn in Buenos Aires by Omnibus-Type after the wide grotesques of the nineteenth century. The first Azul... had its title set in one of them.
Text
The first edition, as printed. Spelling and punctuation are not modernised; obvious printing errors are kept and noted.
Notes
At the end of the book, never under the text: where later editions differ, and what a word meant in its day.
Series
Six titles a year, numbered, in the order they were first printed. The first six are above.

Not for sale.

Editorial Ochenta is a self-initiated concept: a house that could exist, drawn to show how it would look and read. The texts are real and in the public domain; the books are not.