Books of the Day: Love and ruins

“Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Hart Crane, Inge … oh, the debris! The wreckage!” - Tennessee Williams

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961)

Novelist, adventurer, war correspondent

Recipient, The Nobel Prize for LIterature, 1954

Born under the same star as Hart Crane- same day, same year, both in the mIdwest-  Hemingway pursued fiction, killing himself at 61. Crane took the path of poetry and did the same, thirty years before. Both lived hard, drank oceans, and  left mixed literary legacies, though Hemingway’s stature as one of the last century’s greatest writers stands.

Henry Bemis Books has two Hemingway first editions available:

The Old Man and the Sea (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952, 1st. ed, 1st printing). Ex-library copy. Hardcover, octavo, 140 pp. Some foxing on the end papers; library stamps on front end papers. With unclipped dust jacket in mylar covering. No library tags on the spine. Blue-tinted author photo on back cover. Overall, very good condition. HBB price: $275.

For Whom the Bell Tolls (Scribners, 1st ed, early, unstated printing, 1940). Regarded by many as Hemingway’s masterwork, this love story set in the Spanish Civil War was published in October 1940 in a first printing of 75,000 copies. It was an immediate success and sold more than half a million copies in its first year. An endpaper note indicates this copy was purchased new in 1941. Hardcover, unclipped dust jacket (some small tears and fraying at the edges, some browning on the end papers. Overall, good condition. 8.5” x 6”, 471 pp. HBB price: $100.

Henry Bemis Books is one man’s attempt to bring more diversity and quality to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg market of devoted readers starved for choices. Our website is at www.henrybemisbookseller.blogspot.com. For more information about any listed book, or more photos, please contact Lindsay at henrybemisbookseller@gmail.com. Henry Bemis Books is also happy to entertain reasonable offers on items in inventory. Shipping is always free; local buyers are welcome to drop by and pick up their purchases at our location off Peachtree Road in Northwest Charlotte if they like. #RareBooks #HenryBemisBooks #Hemingway #First Editions #ForWhomtheBellTolls #TheOldManAndTheSea