Strange Forces

Before Jorge Luis Borges, there was Leopoldo Lugones. 

Now, for the first time in English, Lugones’s complete masterwork Strange Forces appears in an exquisite translation—the only complete English edition featuring the “lost” 1926 revisions and his “Ensayo de una cosmogonía” (“Essay towards a Cosmogony”). Explore the laboratory where the rational horrors of the nineteenth century were born, a world where empirical rigor is applied to the paranormal, and scientific inquiry leads not to enlightenment, but to madness. In these tales, you will discover:

The apocalyptic melody hidden within the mathematics of sound.
The terrifying metaphysics of astral projection.
The horticultural alchemy required to cultivate a lethal sentient flower.
The tragic boundary between man and beast, and the terrible cost of crossing it.

As Borges himself attested: “If we had to concentrate in one single man the entire course of Argentinian literature…this man would without a doubt be Lugones.”
Bridging the psychological dread of Poe and the cosmic nihilism of Lovecraft, Strange Forces is not merely a collection of tales; it is the blueprint for a new mode of philosophical horror.

Had there been no Lugones, the magic realism of Latin America as we know it would not exist.

THIS IS THE FIRST & ONLY COMPLETE ENGLISH EDITION. 

This is the first and only complete English translation of the definitive second edition, featuring all twelve stories and the essential concluding essay “Ensayo de una cosmogonía” (“Essay towards a Cosmogony”), frequently omitted from previous English versions.

Don’t settle for an abridged experience. While other English versions (including the 2001 Gilbert translation) focus almost exclusively on the fictional stories, this is the first and only professional translation to unify Lugones’s fiction with his Theosophy. It contains his final corrections before his tragic suicide.

Why this version is the definitive choice for lovers of "The Weird":

The "Occult Skeleton Key" Restored: Includes the full "Essay towards a Cosmogony " (Ensayo de una cosmogonía). Lugones considered these Ten Lessons the heart of the book; without them, the "metaphysical physics" of stories like The Psychon remain a mystery.

The Rare 1926 M. Gleizer Text: Translated from the author’s final revised edition, featuring specialized scientific vocabulary and significantly more "lúgubre" (gloomy) and tragic endings to stories like "Viola Acherontia."

From Mad Science to Mysticism: Understand Lugones’s shift from late-Victorian horror to early 20th-century Theosophy. This version preserves Lugones’s specific "Scientific Laws" of mathematical harmony and cosmic force.