As Borges is a well liked writer, both by our host and many of us, I would like to present the two collections that he edited (and presented and in some cases translated, but you need to read Spanish for that) in the eighties, mainly because I am rereading those I have. First he edited "La Biblioteca de Babel", real books that he considered fitting for the Library of Babel. Then he edited "Biblioteca Personal", though it is considered María Kodama had too much influence on its make up. He supervised also the physical appeareance and shape. The first series are small books, physically attractive books, novellas and long short stories rather than full novels. The second however are good sized books, and that influences the works chosen.

The prologues for both collections have been collected and published, though I doubt they have been translated.

As you can see he had no problem including his own works in the list. When possible I have included the most usual English version of the title. Most of them can be found in the internet, as they are quite old texts.

Biblioteca de Babel

Jack London, Las muertes concéntricas(The Minions of Midas).
Jorge Luis Borges, 25 de Agosto de 1983 (Shakespeare's Memory).
Gustav Meyrink, El cardenal Napellus (The Cardinal Napellus).
Léon Bloy, Cuentos descorteses (Disagreeable Tales).
Giovanni Papini, El espejo que huye (The Mirror that Slips).
Oscar Wilde, El crimen de Lord Arthur Saville (Lord Arthur Savile's Crime).
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, El convidado de las últimas fiestas (Le convive des dernières fêtes, in Contes Cruels).
Pedro de Alarcón, El amigo de la muerte (Death's Friend).
Herman Melville, Bartleby el escribiente (Bartleby the Scrivener).
William Beckford, Vathek
H. G. Wells, La puerta en el muro (The Door in the Wall).
P'u Sung-Ling, El invitado tigre (The Tiger Guest).
Arthur Machen, La pirámide de fuego (The Shining Pyramid).
Robert Louis Stevenson, La isla de las voces (The Island of the Voices).
G. K. Chesterton, El ojo de Apolo (The Eye of Apollo).
Jacques Cazotte, El diablo enamorado (The Devil in Love).
Franz Kafka, El buitre (The Vulture).
Edgar Allan Poe, La carta robada (The Purloined Letter).
Leopoldo Lugones, La estatua de sal (The Statue of Salt).
Rudyard Kipling, La casa de los deseos (The House of Desires).
Galland, Las mil y una noches (The Thousand and One Nights, according to Galland).
Burton, Las mil u una noches (The Thousand and One Nights, according to Burton).
Henry James, Los amigos de los amigos (The Friends of the Friends).
Voltaire, Micromegas
Charles H.Hinton, Relatos científicos (Scientific Romances).
Nathaniel Hawthorne, El gran rostro de piedra (The Great Stone Face).
Lord Dunsany, El país de Yann (Idle Days on the Yann).
Saki, La reticencia de Lady Anne (The Reticence of Lady Anne).
Russian Tales
Argentinian Tales
J. L. Borges & A. Bioy Casares, Nuevos cuentos de Bustos Domecq (untranslated as far as I know).
Jorge Luis Borges, Libro de sueños (untranslated, I think)
Antonio Fernández Férrer, Borges A/Z (quotes and interviews, in encyclopedia format).

And this is the “Biblioteca Personal”, Borges’ Personal Library, unfinished
when he dies in 1986. There are many correspondences with the previous list,
naturally, although this one goes beyond fantastic literature into
criticism, history and philosophy.

Arreola, Juan José, Confabulario.
Julio Cortázar, Cuentos (selected tales).
Evangelios apócrifos (Apocryphal Gospels).
Franz Kafka, América (Amerika).
G. K. Chesterton, La cruz azul y otros cuentos,(The Blue Cross and other
tales).
Wilkie Collins, La piedra lunar (The Moonstone).
Maeterlinck, La inteligencia de las flores (The Intelligence of Flowers).
Dino Buzzati, El desierto de los tártaros (The Tartar Steppe).
Henrik Ibsen, Peer Gynt. Hedda Gabler.
J. M. Eça de Queiroz, El mandarín (The Mandarin).
Leopoldo Lugones, El imperio jesuítico (The Jesuit Empire).
André Gide, Los monederos falsos (The Counterfeiters).
H. G. Wells, La máquina del tiempo. El hombre invisible (The Time Machine.
The Invisible Man).
Robert Graves, Los mitos griegos (The Greek Myths).
Fiedor Dostoievski, Los demonios (Demons).
Edward Kasner y James Newman, Matemáticas e imaginación (Mathematics and the
Imagination).
Eugene O'Neill, El gran dios Brown. Extraño interludio. El luto le sienta a
Electra (The Great God Brown, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra).
Ariwara No Narihira, Cuentos de Ise (Tales of Ise).
Herman Melville, Benito Cereno. Billy Budd. Bartleby, el escribiente (Benito
Cereno. Billy Budd. Bartleby the Scrivener).
Giovanni Papini. Lo trágico cotidiano. El piloto ciego. Palabras y sangre
(The Tragic Everyday. The Blind Pilot. Words and Blood).
Arthur Machen, Los tres impostores (The Three Impostors).
Fray Luis de León, Cantar de Cantares. Exposición del Libro de Job (Rhymed
translations and Commentary of Song of Songs and the Book of Job).
Joseph Conrad, Con la soga al cuello. El corazón de las tinieblas (The End
of the Tether. Heart of Darkness).
Edward Gibbon, Decadencia y ruina del Imperio Romano (Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire).
Oscar Wilde, Ensayos y diálogos (Essays and Lectures).
E. Martínez Estrada, Obra poética (Poetry).
Henri Michaux, Un bárbaro en Asia (A Barbarian in Asia).
Hermann Hesse, El juego de los abalorios (The Glass Bead Game).
Enoch A. Bennett, Enterrado en vida (Buried Alive).
Claudio Eliano, Historia de los animales (On the Nature of Animals)
Gustave Flaubert, La tentación de San Antonio (The Temptation of Saint
Anthony).
Marco Polo, Viajes (The Travels of Marco Polo).
George Bernard Shaw, César y Cleopatra. La comandante Bárbara. Cándida
(Caesar and Cleopatra. Major Barbara. Candida).
Francisco de Quevedo, Marco Bruto. La hora de todos (Life of Marcus Brutus).
Eden Phillpotts, Los rojos Redmaine (The Red Redmaynes).
Sören Kierkegaard, Temor y temblor (Fear and Trembling)
Gustav Meyrink, El Golem (The Golem).
Henry James, La lección del maestro. La figura en la alfombra. La vida
privada (The Lesson of the Master. The Figure in the Carpet. The Private
Life).
Heródoto (Herodotus), Los nueve libros de la historia (Histories)
Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo.
Rudyard Kipling, Cuentos (Selected tales).
William Beckford, Vathek.
Jean Cocteau, El secreto profesional y otros textos (Professional Secrets).
Paul Groussac, Crítica literaria (Literary Criticism).
Manuel Mújica Laínez, Los ídolos (The Idols).
León Bloy, La salvación por los judíos (Salvation from the Jews).
William James, Las variedades de la experiencia religiosa. Estudio sobre la
naturaleza humana (The varieties of the religious experience: A Study on Human Nature).
Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders.
Thomas de Quincey, Los últimos días de Emmanuel Kant y otros relatos (The last days of Immanuel Kant).
Marcel Schwob, Vidas imaginarias (Imaginary Lives).
Ramón Gómez de la Serna, La obra de Silverio Lanza (Works of Silverio Lanza).
Las mil y una noches según Galland (One Thousand and One Nights, Galland).
Robert Louis Stevenson, Las nuevas noches Árabes. Markheim (The New Arabian Nights. Markheim).
Bhagavad-Gita / Gilgamesh.
David Garnett, De dama a zorro. Un hombre en el zoológico. La vuelta del
marinero (Lady into Fox. A Man in the Zoo. The Sailor's Return).
Jonathan Swift, Viajes de Gulliver (Gulliver's Travels).
Juan Ruiz, El libro de Buen Amor (The Book of Good Love).
William Blake, Poesía completa (Complete Poems).
Hugh Walpole, En la plaza oscura (Above the Dark Circus).
Thorstein Veblen, Teoría de la clase ociosa (The Theory of the Leisure Class).
Edgar Allan Poe, Cuentos (Tales).
Publio Virgilio Maron, La Eneida (The Eneid).
Voltaire, Cuentos (Tales).
J. W. Dunne, Un experimento con el tiempo (An Experiment with Time).
Attilio Momigliano, Ensayo sobre el "Orlando Furioso" (Essay on "Orlando Furioso").
Snorri Sturluson, Saga de Egil-Skallagrimsson (Egil-Skallagrimsson Saga).

Interesting, as I was reading Manguel's Library at Night this morning... a wonderful book to dip into

(mine is in a Swedish translation whose syntax makes it ponderous in a German way)

I have only read Manguel's "The Dictionnary of Imaginary Places", but someone who read books to Borges for four years must be Borgesian for life.

I am also sure that Borges would say that each one must make his/her own library, depending on nationality, education and life events, but that there are a few books that should be read by all.

A perfect list to lose some years into while in extraodinary rendition...

I remember being 17, doing exactly what I didn't like, a head full of stupid ideas; reading Pedro Páramo got me so depressed for a while. But Gulliver's Travels helped me laugh again, if just a little.

What thrilled me when I discovered both of book series in the middle eighties was that I had already read around half of them (and only a few short stories by Borges, usually in multi author compilations). So I both chased for the rest of his work, and the books he was promoting, as clearly we were interested on similar literature.

My downturn came from Kierkegaard, my laughs from Kipling...