HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Old Man and the Sea. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.
First edition, first printing, in the original first-issue dust jacket.
Octavo. Publisher's original pale blue cloth, Hemingway's facsimile signature blind-stamped to the upper board, spine lettered in silver, in the original pictorial dust jacket.
A true first printing, with the required Scribner's capital "A" and publisher's seal on the copyright page. The dust jacket is also the correct first-printing issue, with brown printing to the flaps and rear panel, Hemingway's portrait to the rear with a blue tint, and no mention of either the Pulitzer Prize or Nobel Prize.
The Old Man and the Sea is one of the defining works of twentieth-century American literature and Hemingway's final major work of fiction published during his lifetime. The story of Santiago, an ageing Cuban fisherman and his extraordinary struggle with a giant marlin, brought Hemingway renewed international acclaim after its publication in 1952.
The book was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and played a particularly important role in Hemingway receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954, with the Nobel Committee specifically referring to the mastery of narrative demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea.
The book itself is a very attractive example. The original blue cloth remains well preserved, the binding is square and tight, and the pages are clean with the expected light toning associated with the paper stock.
The original first-issue dust jacket has been price-clipped and shows moderate wear and chipping, principally around the extremities, as illustrated in the photographs. It is now preserved in a removable protective sleeve.
An important first edition of Hemingway's best-known late work, retaining the considerably more desirable original first-printing dust jacket.
