"MAN IS NOT MADE FOR DEFEAT": LOVELY FIRST EDITION OF HEMINGWAY'S THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Old Man and The Sea. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952. Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $7000.

First edition of Hemingway's classic story of Santiago and his epic battle with the marlin and the sharks, winning him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and contributing to his award of the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

William Faulkner, who reviewed The Old Man and the Sea for the magazine Shenandoah, called the novel Hemingway's best: "Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us. I mean his and my contemporaries" (Baker, 593-94). "Here is the master technician once more at the top of his form, doing superbly what he can do better than anyone else" (New York Times). In this short novel Hemingway perfected the minimalist style that he had been honing and refining throughout his career. While working on it he wrote to Scribner, "This is the prose that I have been working for all my life that should read easily and simply and seem short and yet have all the dimensions of the visible world and the world of a man's spirit. It is as good prose as I can write as of now" (Letters, 738). With Scribner's "A" beneath copyright notice; with no mention of the Nobel Prize on dust jacket. Hanneman A24a. Owner signature.

Slight crease to first few leaves, cloth fine. Faint foxing to a few areas of fresh, bright and unrubbed dust jacket. A nearly fine copy.