Buenos Aires
W. H. Hudson was born on the pampas outside Buenos Aires in 1841 to American parents, and he spent his childhood in a landscape that was being fenced and sold as he grew up. Far Away and Long Ago is his memoir of that world; The Purple Land is a novel about an Englishman who travels through it and misunderstands almost everyone.
The national library has moved several times and now occupies the building that once housed the lottery. Its Argentine and Río de la Plata collections are the place to check the history Hudson drew on, and the city's immigrant press is a reminder that the pampas he remembered were already changing.
A library to check
- Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno — catalogues and digital collections, open to readers online
Books connected to Buenos Aires
- The Purple Land — W. H. Hudson, 1885. A picaresque South American adventure by a writer who actually grew up there.
- Far Away and Long Ago — W. H. Hudson, 1918. One of the best childhood memoirs in English, and a portrait of a vanished landscape.
A note on accuracy
We describe literary connections and public collections, not street addresses, opening hours or ticket prices. Those change and we cannot verify them for every reader. Follow the institution's own site for current visiting information.