The structure of this hypertext was inspired by that of the novel April March, written by Herbert Quain in 1936. I have not managed to acquire a copy of the novel itself (copies of whose single edition are elusive, even at www.abebooks.com ), but have been inspired by the vivid, if schematic, description of the book in A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain by Jorge Luis Borges.

April March begins with a conversation on a railway station. Three subsequent chapters describe alternative vrsions of what might have preceded that conversation. Three more groups of three imagine what might have occurred before each of the second-layer chapters. Quain's work diverges into different genres and radically different narratives.

I have differed from Quain in many ways; for example by offering only a binary choice at each level (though I provide considerably more levels). My sections are much shorter than his, and are in verse.. My narratives do not diverge into different genres, and the various stories generated by the hypertext are mutually consistent. Sixty-four narratives can be found within this web. Some of them may well be considered unsatisfactory, but then so, according to Borges, were some of Quain's nine.

George Simmers