"THE MOST LITERARY HUNTING TRIP ON RECORD": INSCRIBED FIRST EDITION OF HEMINGWAY'S GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Green Hills of Africa. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935. Octavo, original light green cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in custom leather clamshell box. $25,000.

First edition of Hemingway's gripping account of big game hunting, inscribed to the president of the American Museum of Natural History, "For F. Trubee Davison / hoping (I won't bore him too much and) it will remind him a little of Africa / Ernest Hemingway."

Between the publication of Winner Take Nothing (1933) and To Have and Have Not (1937), "Hemingway went to Africa to shoot the bounding kudu and the ungainly rhinoceros and to reply to his critics. The result is Green Hills of Africa… It is the most literary hunting trip on record" (New York Times). Here Hemingway "attempted to write an absolutely true book to see whether the shape of a country and the pattern of a month's action can, if truly presented, compete with a work of the imagination" (Foreword). With Scribner "A" on copyright page, indicating first printing (10,550 copies). Serialized in Scribner's Magazine in seven installments, May-November, 1935. Decorations by Edward Shenton. Dust jacket Grissom's "B" (both A and B were from the first printing), with green band on rear panel extending through nine inlines of the 18-line blurb. Hanneman A13a. Grissom A.13.1.a. Bruccoli & Clark I:179. The recipient of this copy, F. Trubee Davison (1896–1974) was the United States Assistant Secretary of War and President of the American Museum of Natural History. During World War I, he formed the "First Yale Unit," the first naval air reserve unit. After the war, Davison served as Assistant Secretary of War for Air from 1926-1933, when he was asked to head the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He quickly set off to Africa in 1934 to enhance the collection at the Natural History Museum, begun by Theodore Roosevelt and Carl Akeley, with four additional elephants. While in Africa, in the company of Martin and Osa Johnson, Davison met Hemingway before an elephant hunt. Hemingway sent this copy of Green Hills to Davison in November of 1935, with Davison writing to thank Hemingway on November 15, 1935. (Ernest Hemingway Collection–JFK Library–EHPP-IC06-018). With a copy of Davison's letter and related provenance material laid in.

Cloth with sunning to the fugitive green ink on the spine and board edges, as is common, cloth clean and fresh; dust jacket, supplied from another copy, with edge-wear and toning, a few stains. A very good inscribed copy with an excellent association.