“FROM ONE WHO SAW THE SUN ALSO RISE”: SCARCE FIRST ISSUE OF THE SUN ALSO RISES, INSCRIBED BY THE DEDICATEE, HEMINGWAY’S FIRST WIFE, HADLEY RICHARDSON

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. Octavo, original black cloth with gold paper labels, uncut. WITH: KIMMEL, Stanley. The Strange Voyage. San Francisco: Little Books, 1921. Slim 12mo, side-stapled original wraparound brown paper covers. WITH: Lost Generation Journal, Volume III, Number 3 (Fall 1975). Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois University, 1975. Slim quarto, original white paper cover. Housed together in a custom clamshell box.

First edition, first issue, an extraordinary association copy, inscribed by Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, to author and interviewer Lawrence Broer: “Best wishes to Larry & Kris from one who saw the Sun Also Rise. Sincerely, Hadley R. Mowrer.” Hadley was, of course, the dedicatee of the novel; Broer was a noted Hemingway scholar, who apparently asked Hadley to inscribe his own copy (a second inscription identifies this copy as originally his). Accompanied by Stanley Kimmel’s book of verse and an issue of Lost Generation Journal containing Broer’s signed article on Kimmel. The Kimmels were close friends of the Hemingways in Paris.

In The Sun Also Rises, “the post-war disillusion and the post-war liberation are united in the physical enjoyment of living and the pains of love. Perhaps that is what expatriation was about” (Connolly 50). Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley Richardson (now Mowrer), describes Sun as “my book,” as she is not only the dedicatee, but “had been Hemingway’s constant companion during perhaps the most important formative years of his career” (Broer, 16). These were the Paris years, when the Hemingways made friends with Stanley and Elsie Kimmel. In 1975, Hemingway scholar Lawrence Broer arranged through the Kimmels to interview Hadley Mowrer for an article in the Lost Generation Journal, featuring the Kimmels (present here). In it Broer describes the Kimmels’ relationships with the Hemingways and poet Carl Sandburg. Also included in this grouping is a first edition of Stanley Kimmel’s book of poetry, The Strange Voyage (1921). Having grown up in coal-fields of Southern Illinois, Kimmel possessed “a vision marked by rueful humor and a passion for tolerance… earning him the title of ‘Sandburg of the Coalmines” (Broer, 11). First issue of The Sun Also Rises, with “stopped” spelled incorrectly on page 181, and the Ecclesiastes quotation present on page [viii]. Also inscribed, “To Dr. Broer, In appreciation for the many ways you have helped me in the past year. Sincerely, Irma B.” Without extremely scarce dust jacket. Hanneman 6A.

Rubbing to paper label, light wear to original cloth, renewed endpapers. An extremely good and exceptional presentation copy of this highspot of American literature, comprising a significant “Lost Generation” association with superb ancillary material and distinguished provenance.