The University Library has recently received a special limited edition of Pablo Neruda’s Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada. Presented to the University in 1991 by Patricio Aylwin Azócar, former President of Chile, this copy is no. 555 of 250 copies printed from 501 to 750 and features a dedication to the University of Cambridge by the Chilean president.

Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1904-1973) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. He is best known for his poetry, most notably this work, which he wrote in 1924 when he was just nineteen years old. Neruda’s works are widely represented in the Cambridge Libraries collections, both in Spanish and in English translation (click here to view our holdings in iDiscover).

This particular edition of Twenty love poems and ‘A song of despair’ was printed by Ismael Espinosa in 1990 in Santiago de Chile.[i] It is presented in elephant folio, with a satin ribbon, illustrated with eight original glazes by Chilean magical realism painter Hernán Valdovinos. The volume is beautifully bound in peacock-feather decorated cloth, with gold paper-title-label insert on the front panel and marbled endpapers.[ii] The calligraphy is by María Angélica Seguel.

Sonia Morcillo

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[i] Ismael Espinosa talks about this edition in Revelaciones de un editor de Neruda, El Mercurio, Sept. 25, 1988, p. E16 (available online at: https://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/628/w3-article-297688.html)

[ii] Description details source: The Edmonton Book Store, Canada.