Books

Paris: Contact Publishing Company, 1923. First Edition. Near Fine. First edition, first and only printing of Ernest Hemingway's legendary first published book. [viii], 58, [2] pp. Bound in publisher's original gray wraps lettered in black, lacking the scarce glassine wraps. Near Fine with light wear and toning to the spine, faint soiling to wraps. A lovely copy, housed in a custom cloth chemise case. A momentous debut and a turning point in world literature. One of only 300 copies, published by expat Robert McAlmon at Contact Publishing Co. in Paris in the summer of 1923. Four of the poems and all three of the stories made their print debut here. It was originally set to be Hemingway's sophomore effort but William Bird at Three Mountains Press dragged his heels in publishing the limited edition of In Our Time, so this came out first. Few examples of Hemingway's early work remain as his suitcase with manuscripts was stolen from a Paris train station in December 1922. Hanneman A1.

"Three Stories & Ten Poems" was printed in Dijon by Maurice Darantiere, the same printer of "Ulysses" the year prior, and was published by Robert McAlmon's firm. This book marks the first publication of the stories "Up in Michigan", "Out of Season", and "My Old Man", along with the poems "Oklahoma", "Captives", "Montparnasse", and "Along With Youth". The other six poems were first published in the January 1923 issue of Poetry magazine under the collective title "Wanderings". This edition includes some of Hemingway's earliest surviving works, as his first wife, Hadley Richardson, lost a suitcase filled with his manuscripts in 1922. Hemingway was deeply involved in the production of this first publication, taking as much care as he did with his first child (Mellow, p. 239), and collaborated with Gertrude Stein on the typographical cover design. Edmund Wilson's insightful review of Hemingway's work, following his second book, "in our time" (1924), noted: "His prose is of the first distinction, [demonstrating] a naiveté of language often passing into the colloquialism of the character dealt with, which serves actually to convey profound emotions and complex themes."