Hemingway, Ernest | "The world breaks everyone ..."

From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft

Hemingway, Ernest

A Farewell to Arms. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929

8vo. Publisher's black cloth with gilt labels to cover and spine. Pictorial dust-jacket designed by Cleonike (Katherine spelling on front flap); usual spine fading, ends of spine panel somewhat chipped, abraded spot in the blue above publisher, rear panel a bit rubbed.

First edition of the book which established Hemingway's reputation.

A Farewell to Arms was published on 27 September 1929 in a first printing of 31,050 copies, after serialization in Scribner's Magazine from May to October. Within four weeks sales climbed to 33,000 copies, and a month later, despite the stock market crash, they soared past 50,000.

A profile of Hemingway by Dorothy Parker in The New Yorker in November marked the point at which the author "passed beyond fame into living legend" (Lynn, Hemingway). "Its success was so enormous that it may be said to have ended Hemingway's influence as a writer. After it one could no more imitate that musical crystal-clear style; blown like glass from the white-heat of violence ..." (Cyril Connolly, The Modern Movement).

REFERENCE:

Grissom A8; Hanneman A8a; Connolly, The Modern Movement 60