Tierra Purpurea

Hudson, Guillermo E. Tierra Purpurea, Buenos Aires: Editorial Guillermo Kraft, Limitada, 1956.

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Este libro, titulado “Tierra Purpurea”, fue escrito por Guillermo Enrique Hudson e ilustrado por Enrique Castells Capurro. Se terminó de imprimir en Buenos Aires, en los talleres gráficos de Guillermo Kraft Limitada, sociedad anónima de impresiones generales, el día 30 de febrero de 1956, publicándose bajo el signo editorial de la misma. Dirigió la obra en su aspecto gráfico Don Alberto Kraft. Se imprimieron 25 ejemplares en papel imperial del Japón, numerados del I al XXV; 50 ejemplares en papel verjurado, fabricado especialmente por Nils, Troedson & Co. de Gotemburgo, numerados del XXVI al LXXV. Representan la edición común 5,200 ejemplares en papel off-set, numerados del 1 al 5,200, estando los últimos 200 ejemplares fuera de comercio.
(Este) Ejemplar N. 254.

The Purple Land is a novel set in 19th century Uruguay by William Henry Hudson, first published in 1885 under the title The Purple Land that England Lost.
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Jorge Luis Borges dedicated an essay to The Purple Land in his book Other Inquisitions (1952). He compared Hudson's novel to the Odyssey and described it as perhaps the "best work of gaucho literature". Borges sees the novel as the story of Richard Lamb's gradual "acriollamiento" ("Creolisation"). In other words, Lamb "goes native." To begin with, Lamb looks down on the Uruguayans, with their disorganised political system and lack of law and order and civilised amenities, thinking it would have been better for Uruguay to become part of the British Empire. But he slowly comes to see the advantages of the freedom they enjoy, especially in comparison to the stuffiness of Victorian England. According to Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, who is quoted by Borges, the final pages of the novel contain "the supreme justification of America compared with Western civilisation."