Perfecting a text: authorial revisions in José Emilio Pacheco's "Morirás lejos"

Jos? Emilio Pacheco's first novel, Morir?s lejos, has enjoyed considerable critical acclaim and has been the subject of recent articles, dissertations, and books.1 Curiously, however, the bulk of this attention has centered almost exclusively on the second edition, described by the author as the "segunda edici?n revisada," which appeared in November of 1977 and became an instant best-seller. The first edition had been published ten years earlier (November 1967), but it was largely ignored, and the 4200 copies remained in relative obscurity. This contrasting fortune of the two works calls for research which would attempt to postulate why the fate of each edition was so disparate.