A New Universal History of Infamy is the title of a 2004 collection of short fiction by Welsh

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

 fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 writer Rhys Hughes

Rhys Hughes

Rhys Henry Hughes , is a Welsh writer and essayist.Born in Cardiff, Hughes is a prolific short story writer with an eclectic mix of influences, which include Italo Calvino, Milorad Pavić, Jorge Luis Borges, Stanisław Lem, Flann O'Brien, Felipe Alfau, Donald Barthelme and Jack Vance...

. The book serves as a parody and homage to Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

' collection A Universal History of Infamy

A Universal History of Infamy

A Universal History of Infamy, or A Universal History of Iniquity , is a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, first published in 1935, and revised by the author in 1954. Most were published individually in the newspaper Critica between 1933 and 1934...

, following the plan of the original closely but not slavishly.

The book was published in Portuguese translation as Uma nova história universal da infâmia in April 2006. Greek and Spanish editions appeared in 2007.

The contents of the original American edition are as follows, including the names of the authors parodied by Hughes in the relevant sections. Not all of the included pieces form part of Hughes' projected cycle of 1000 tales: some are merely 'fragments'.

• Preface to the Unpublished Edition
• Preface to an Imaginary Edition

A NEW UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF INFAMY

• The Brutal Buddha, Baron von Ungern-Sternberg
  Roman Ungern von Sternberg
  Baron Roman Nikolai Maximilian von Ungern-Sternberg was a Russian Yesaul , Lieutenant-general, and a hero of World War I...
  
  
• The Honest Liar, Denis Zachaire
  Denis Zachaire
  Denis Zachaire is the pseudonym of a 16th century alchemist who spent his life and family fortune in a futile search for the Philosopher's Stone and the elusive Elixir of Life.-Pursuit of alchemy:...
  
  
• Chewer of Hearts, François l'Olonnais
• Trader of Doom, Basil Zaharoff
  Basil Zaharoff
  Basil Zaharoff, GCB, GBE , born Zacharias Basileios Zacharoff, was an arms dealer and financier...
  
  
• The Worm Supreme, Francisco Solano López
• The Worst Hero, Dick Turpin
  Dick Turpin
  Richard "Dick" Turpin was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York for horse theft. Turpin may have followed his father's profession as a butcher early in life, but by the early 1730s he had joined a gang of deer thieves, and later became a poacher,...
  
  
• The Maddest King, Henry Christophe

STREETCORNER MOUSE

• Streetcorner Mouse

ET AL

• City of Blinks (Herbert Quain)
• The Landscape Player (Fergus Hall)
• The Spanish Cyclops (Felipe Alfau)
• The Unsubtle Cages (Thomas Ligotti)
• Celia the Impaler (Michel Leiris)
• Alone with a Longwinded Soul (D.F. Lewis)
• Monkeybreath (J. MeerKat & M. Rabbits—from Thackery T. Lambshead)
• Of Exactitude in Theology (Jaromir Hladik)

SURPLUS PARODIES

• Finding the Book of Sand (Jorge Luis Borges)
• The Hyperacusis of Chumbly Mucker (John Sladek)
• Ictus Purr (parody of Hughes in the style of the reader)

UNWISE APPENDIX

• Life and the Plumbline (only included in the limited edition)