text: But Quiroga's wife was not happy: although she had become well-adapted to life in the jungle, the relationship between her and her husband was fraught with discord. Clashes between the couple occurred frequently, and although the cause was usually trivial, their excessive arguments became daily setbacks. These incidences, accentuated by Quiroga's volatile nature, disturbed his wife so greatly that she became severely depressed. Ana María became a new tragedy in Quiroga's life when, after a violent fight with the writer, she ingested a fatal dose of the mercury(II) chloride Quiroga used in his photography. Unfortunately, the poison did not kill her instantly; instead, she suffered eight days of agony before finally dying in her husband's arms on 14 December 1915. The tragedy of Ana María's painful death plunged Quiroga and his two children, five-year-old Eglé and four-year-old Darío, into dark despair.
  Buenos Aires
  After this tragedy, Quiroga quickly left for Buenos Aires with his children where he became an Under-Secretary-General Accountant in the Uruguayan Consulate, thanks to the efforts of some of his friends who wanted to help. Throughout the year 1917 Quiroga lived in a basement with his children on Avenue Canning, alternating his diplomatic work with setting up a home office and working on many stories, which were being published in prestigious magazines. Quiroga collected most of the stories in several books, the first was  Tales of Love, Madness and Death  (1917). Manuel Galvez, owner of a publishing firm, had suggested that he write it and the volume immediately became a huge success with audiences and critics, consolidating Quiroga as the true master of the Latin American short story.
  The following year he settled in a small apartment on Calle Agüero, while he published Jungle Tales (1918, a collection of children's stories featuring animals and set in the Misiones rainforest). Quiroga dedicated this book to his children, who accompanied him during that rough period of poverty in the damp basement.