Hemingway, Ernest

A Farewell to Arms. With illustrations by Daniel Rasmusson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948

8vo. Publisher's grey cloth, printed spine label. Original dust-jacket;  edgeworn and chipped with loss,  tape-reinforced on verso. In a quarter-morocco slipcase.

Hanneman A8j

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First illustrated edition. An extensively annotated copy presented to A.E. Hotchner: "To Hotch from Hemingstein wishing us good luck." With Hotchner’s explanatory autograph note loosely inserted:

“I visited Hemingway at his home in Key West in 1955 to discuss a Theatre venture that Marlene Dietrich had proposed. She wanted to do a one-woman show on Broadway comprised of excerpts from Ernest’s books & short stories. In furtherance of this, Hemingway took this illustrated edition of “A Farewell to Arms” from his bookcase and edited the first chapter for Dietrich. On page 3 he wrote “start,” on p. 5 he changed some words [“gray beard like a goat’s chin tuft” to “the grey mustache”], on p. 6 he indicated where the first part of the excerpt should end. [The passages between the ends and starts of sections selected are crossed out with large pencil X’s.] On p. 8 the text resumes, with Hemingway writing in 5 words for transition [“That night in the mess”]. There is a further cut & the reading resumes on p. 9. On p. 23 he changes a word & underlines others [“Scotch” to “Scottish” and underlines “pas encore,” presumably marking it to be italicized as a foreign phrase]. AE Hotchner.”

Hemingway’s annotations are, in fact, more extensive than Hotchner's notes. Hemingway similarly annotated chapter 34, writing “transition” at the head of the chapter on page 268. He indicates a jump in the text from p. 270 to p. 272, where he writes “Transition plus emotion and explanation.” On p. 275 he marks a section and writes “Hotch: you should have this no matter what,” and on the next page writes “Here is your transition.”

Hotchner went to Havana in the spring of 1948 to interview Hemingway for an article for Cosmopolitan called “The Future of Literature.” Already a literary aspirant and Hemingway fan, the twenty-something Hotchner quickly bonded with Hemingway, and the two became quite close. By the mid-fifties, according to biographer Kenneth Lynn, Hotchner was “his most intimate confidante” (p. 529), offering personal, emotional, and professional support—he helped to shorten considerably “The Dangerous Summer” that Hemingway wrote for Life when Papa lost his handle on its length—until the end of his life.