Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #105419
Cost: $6,000.00

L'Adieu aux armes [Farewell to Arms]

Ernest Hemingway

"FOR FRAZER DREW, HOPING HE HAS A GOOD TRIP HOME, ERNEST HEMINGWAY": RARE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION EARLY FRENCH EDITION OF A FAREWELL TO ARMS, WARMLY INSCRIBED BY HEMINGWAY, FROM HEMINGWAY'S OWN LIBRARY

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. L'Adieu aux armes [Farewell to Arms]. Paris: Gallimard, 1948. Small octavo (4-3/4 by 6-3/4 inches), original maroon paper boards, original dust jacket. $6000.

Early French edition, presentation/association copy inscribed on the half title by Hemingway to Professor Fraser Drew in reference to Drew's 1955 visit with Hemingway and a day spent discussing literature, "For Frazer [sic] Drew, hoping he has a good trip home, Ernest Hemingway." From Hemingway's own library.

As a young teacher Drew wrote a letter to which Hemingway responded with uncharacteristic kindness, signing a number of Drew's books. Hemingway then invited Drew to visit, and on April 8, 1955, one year after Hemingway won the Nobel Prize, they spent a long afternoon discussing literature, later recounted by Drew in his article "Unedited Notes on a Visit to Finca Vigia" (in Bruccoli, Conversations With Ernest Hemingway, 89-98). At the end of Drew's visit Hemingway said "Let's go up to the house and sign those books of yours." Hemingway inscribed all the books Drew had brought with him and presented him with many others from his own collection. Hemingway's inscription in this early French edition of A Farewell to Arms makes particular reference to Drew's imminent departure at the end of his visit with Hemingway. This work is "probably [Hemingway's] best… After it one could no more imitate that musical crystal-clear style; blown like glass from the white-heat of violence" (Connally 60). "A Farewell to Arms was the novel that placed Hemingway, early, among the American masters… the consummate masterpiece, among Hemingway's novels" (Mellow, 377-79). Preceded by the American edition, first issued in 1929, and the 1932 French edition. See Hanneman 8-A; D-70. From the library of Fraser Drew with his bookplate.

A fine inscribed presentation copy with an especially memorable association.

Main Office & Gallery: 1608 Walnut Street, 19th Floor .::. Philadelphia, PA 19103 .::. 215-546-6466 .::. fax 215-546-9064
web: www.baumanrarebooks.com .::. email: [email protected]