Men Without Women

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£ 18 900
Auction dateClassic
28.09.2023 13:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
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United Kingdom, London
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ID 1016371
Lot 82 | Men Without Women
Men Without Women

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest HEMINGWAY(1899-1961). Men Without Women. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927.



Presentation copy of the first edition, first printing, inscribed by the author to Archibald MacLeish with an adapted poetic quotation from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: ‘To my friend & confidant Archibald MacLeish a true man without women this book is dedicated – “Life is real, Life is Ernest”—Hemingway’. We are able to trace just one other presentation copy at auction this century (RBH). Men Without Women was Hemingway's second book of short stories and, for a collection of stories, it sold extremely well: over 15,000 copies in three months. The collection included some of his best, including ‘Fifty Grand’, ‘The Killers’, ‘The Undefeated’, ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, ‘Today is Friday’, and ‘Now I Lay Me’.



Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) was a poet and writer who from 1930-1938 worked as an editor at Fortune magazine, and later became the ninth Librarian of Congress and the recipient of three Pulitzer prizes. In the early 1920s he moved with his wife Ada to Paris, settling into the community of literary expats in the city alongside Hemingway and the artistic coterie at the Riviera which included F. Scott Fitzgerald. MacLeish wrote several poems for or about Hemingway and, after the author’s death in 1948, a long tribute for LIFE magazine. Grissom A.7.1.a.



Octavo. (A few minor stains.) Original black cloth, gold paper labels printed in black to upper board and spine (lacking the dust-jacket, cloth somewhat marked, labels slightly worn, spine faded); custom morocco-backed black cloth box. Provenance: Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982; authorial presentation inscription on front endpaper) – sold Skinner, 21 November 2004, lot 458.

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