Art to See and Buy: Ernest Hemingway’s War Stories

All Hemingway stories are war stories, which is to say, they’re all stories that tussle with life. The Morgan Library & Museum’s Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars (through January 31, 2016) is the first major exhibition of Hemingway’s works from his earliest short stories to his best-known masterpieces. Featured here are our gallery Manhattan Rare Book Company‘s impeccable first edition Hemingway works from each major period of his remarkable, vigorous life in letters.

This particularly exquisite edition of in our time, Hemingway’s first story collection that would define his indelible style and launch his career, is the rarest of all Hemingway titles: one of only 170 copies ever printed. A rare house for a rare collection of vignettes that the foremost critic of the time, Edmund Wilson, wrote “has more artistic dignity than anything else about the period of the war that has yet been written by an American…[Hemingway]  has almost invented a form of his own.”

Hemingway’s exploration of war reached its stunning apex in For Whom The Bell Tolls, often considered his finest work. It was written in the inter-war period that is the focus of the Morgan’s new exhibition, along with his letters, manuscripts, and photographs–“ninety-nine percent” of which have never been seen before, according to Morgan curator Declan Keily. Another first: the tireless book hunters of Manhattan Rare Book Co. have never seen this edition’s original outer jacket on the market.

Also written during the creative heights of his inter-war period, Hemingway’s Winner Take Nothing is his third and last short story collection, and widely considered his best, containing some of his most famous short stories on love, life, and battle, including “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and “After the Storm.” This is a very fine first-edition of the classic collection.

Hemingway’s final major work, The Old Man and the Sea is the novel that won him the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature and reinvigorated his reputation after flagging enthusiasm for his post-war works. Often read as allegorical commentary on his own previous works, this edition is a must-have retrospective for anyone excited about the Morgan’s landmark retrospective. To own any of these works is to own a piece of literary history.

To inquire about these works or learn more, contact Manhattan Rare Book Co., specializing in the finest rare books: first editions, antique books, autographs and covers spanning the genres of literature, science and history. Gallery 90 at The Manhattan Art & Antiques Center, 1050 Second Ave. (P): 212.326.8907 (F): 212.355.4403 (E): info@manhattanrarebooks.com