Ernest Hemingway First Editions

• Three Stories & Ten Poems — 1923 · Contact Publishing Co.Hemingway's first book. Issued in printed wrappers, 300 copies, no dust jacket; some copies retain a plain glassine wrap. Wrappers are gray, lettered in black, with the title list set on the front cover. Title-page imprint reads Contact Publishing Co. Printed in Dijon by Maurice Darantiere. True first appearance of Hemingway in book form. No US/UK precedence issue; a single Paris printing of 300 copies. No book-club edition exists. Beware later facsimiles and reprints; a genuine copy shows the 1923 Paris printing in gray printed wrappers lettered in black.
• in our time — 1924 · Three Mountains Press, ParisLowercase title 'in our time' (prose vignettes only, no full short stories). Printed on Rives handmade paper; tan boards with a red newsprint-collage design, front board lettered in black; woodcut frontispiece portrait of Hemingway by Henry Strater. Numbered, with a limitation statement. The intended run was 300 copies but a printing error reduced it to roughly 170 released. Distinct from the 1925 Boni &…. True first of the prose-vignette text. The 1925 New York 'In Our Time' (capitalized, fourteen full stories with the vignettes as interchapters) is a separate, expanded book that is itself collectible. No book club. The 1925 Boni & Liveright 'In Our Time' first issue carries the dust jacket with endorsement blurbs by Ford Madox Ford, Gilbert Seldes, John Dos Passos and Donald Ogden Stewart; it is Hanneman A3a.
• The Sun Also Rises — 1926 · Charles Scribner's SonsFirst printing (Charles Scribner's Sons, October 1926). The copyright page carries the Scribner's Press seal and the 'Published October 1926' line — NO letter 'A' (Scribner's did not use the 'A' device until 1930). Primary point: p.181 line 26 reads 'stoppped' (three p's), corrected to 'stopped' in the second printing. Supporting first-printing points: 'down-staris' for 'downstairs' at p.169 line 34, and 'BOOK…. US Scribner's (October 1926) is the true first. The first-issue dust jacket is itself a point: on the FRONT panel it miscites Hemingway's earlier book as 'In Our Times' — the correct title is 'In Our Time' — and this is the jacket tell the concern flags. The UK edition was retitled 'Fiesta' (Jonathan Cape, 1927), a later 'first thus.' There was no signed or limited issue of the first. The second printing corrects 'stoppped' to 'stopped'; that printing and all later Scribner's printings, plus Grosset & Dunlap and book-club reprints, lack the misprint. Note that these 1926–1929 printings also carry no letter 'A,' so absence of an 'A' does not by itself prove a first — confirm by the 'stoppped' typo at p.181 line 26 and the single 'Published October 1926' copyright line.
• The Torrents of Spring — 1926 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing identified by the Scribner seal on the copyright page and matching 1926 dates on title and copyright pages, with no later printings indicated. Bound in dark green cloth lettered in red, with a paper spine label. Published May 1926; first printing of about 1,250 copies. True US first; precedes the 1933 UK Jonathan Cape edition. No book club of note. The first printing predates Scribner's 'A' system, so it has no 'A' on the copyright page.
• Men Without Women — 1927 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing identified by the Scribner seal on the copyright page and matching 1927 dates, with the perfect (unbroken) numeral '3' on page 3. Bound in black cloth with gilt-lettered paper labels on the front board and spine; top edge stained yellow. Published October 1927. True US first; precedes the 1928 UK Jonathan Cape edition. No book club. The 1927 first printing predates Scribner's 'A' system, so there is no 'A' on the copyright page; the diagnostic point is the perfect '3' on page 3 together with the Scribner seal.
• A Farewell to Arms — 1929 · Charles Scribner's SonsTrade first: Scribner's 'A' with 1929 imprint, no disclaimer notice on the copyright page (the disclaimer was added in later printings). Dust jacket without the 'legal' notice. A signed/limited issue of 510 copies was printed on rag paper, signed by Hemingway, in slipcase. The 510-copy signed limited (Scribner's, 1929) precedes/accompanies the trade as the deluxe state and is the apex signed landmark; the trade 'A' first is the open-market true first. Later trade printings add the disclaimer paragraph and lose the 'A'; book-club copies are blind-stamped and lack the seal.
• Death in the Afternoon — 1932 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing has the 'A' and the Scribner seal on the copyright page. Bound in black cloth stamped in gilt; color frontispiece by Juan Gris and numerous black-and-white photographic plates. Published September 1932 with a first-issue dust jacket carrying the printed price. True US first; precedes the 1932 UK Jonathan Cape edition. No book club of note; later printings lack the 'A' on the copyright page.
• Winner Take Nothing — 1933 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing has the 'A' and the Scribner seal on the copyright page. Bound in black cloth boards with gold-printed paper labels on the front board and spine; top edge stained red. Published October 1933 with a first-issue dust jacket carrying the printed price. True US first; precedes the 1934 UK Jonathan Cape edition. No book club; later printings drop the 'A' from the copyright page.
• Green Hills of Africa — 1935 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing has the Scribner seal with the letter A on the copyright page. Bound in green cloth with a black spine panel, lettered and stamped in gilt. Issued in a pictorial dust jacket bearing the printed price. Published October 25, 1935, after serialization in Scribner's Magazine. True US first edition; precedes the 1936 UK Cape edition. No book-club edition of note; later printings lack the A and seal on the copyright page.
• To Have and Have Not — 1937 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing has the Scribner seal with the letter A on the copyright page. Bound in black cloth lettered in red. Issued in a dust jacket bearing the printed price and a photograph of Hemingway. Published October 15, 1937. True US first edition; precedes the 1937 UK Cape edition. No book-club edition of note; reprints lack the A and seal.
• The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories — 1938 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing has the Scribner seal with the letter A on the copyright page. Bound in red cloth with Hemingway's facsimile signature stamped in black on the front cover and the spine lettered in gilt and black. Issued in a dust jacket bearing the printed price. Published October 14, 1938. First collected appearance of four previously uncollected stories. True US first edition; precedes the UK Cape edition. No book-club edition of note; later printings drop the A and seal.
• For Whom the Bell Tolls — 1940 · Charles Scribner's SonsFirst printing has the 'A' with 1940 imprint and the first-issue dust jacket WITHOUT the photographer's credit ('Photograph by...') on the rear flap — the credit line was added in a later issue. Some first-issue jackets show the publisher's printed price. US Scribner's 1940 is the true first. The point of issue is the absence of the back-flap photo credit; this is the most-confused Hemingway jacket point. Book-club editions lack the 'A' and have blind-stamp; jackets with the photo credit are later issue, not first.
• Across the River and Into the Trees — 1950 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkFirst printing has the Scribner seal with the letter A on the copyright page. Bound in black cloth stamped in gilt. The earliest dust jacket has yellow (not orange) on the spine panel and bears the printed price. Published September 7, 1950. True US first edition; precedes the 1950 UK Cape edition. Watch for the Book-of-the-Month Club issue: it lacks the A and seal, has a blind-stamp on the rear board, and carries an unpriced jacket.
• The Old Man and the Sea — 1952 · Charles Scribner's SonsFirst printing has the 'A' with 1952 imprint on the copyright page; first-issue dust jacket has the blue/silver design with NO Book-of-the-Month Club blind-stamp and the printed price present (jacket not clipped). US Scribner's 1952 is the true first. The BOMC edition appeared almost simultaneously and is the single most common confusion. BOMC/book-club copy has a small blind-stamped square or dot on the lower-right rear board and NO 'A' on the copyright page; that blind-stamp is the definitive tell.
• A Moveable Feast — 1964 · Charles Scribner's SonsFirst printing (posthumous) is identified by the Scribner code 'A-3.64 [H]' on the copyright page together with the Scribner seal. The volume is quarter-bound in brick-red/russet brown cloth with gray marbled paper-covered boards, a gilt facsimile of Hemingway's signature on the front cover, and the title stamped in gilt on the spine; it collects the memoir text with black-and-white photographs. The first-issue…. The US Scribner's 1964 'A-3.64 [H]' first is the true first; the UK Jonathan Cape edition of 1964 follows. Published posthumously, so there is no author-signed first. Book-club copies lack the 'A-3.64 [H]' code, are typically blind-stamped on the rear board, and were issued in dust jackets without a printed price.
• Islands in the Stream — 1970 · Charles Scribner's SonsThe first printing carries the Scribner code "A-9.70(V)" on the copyright page, transcribed by some dealers as "A 9.70 V": the leading capital A is Scribner's first-printing letter, 9.70 the month and year, and the bracketed letter the manufacturer. Correction to the census note: the "Scribner seal" is not the point here. From 1930 to 1973 Scribner's marked first printings with a capital A on the copyright page,…. Census claim confirmed. The true first is Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1970 — the first of the posthumous novels, published nine years after Hemingway's death, the manuscript having been found among his papers in 1969. The first UK edition is Collins, London, 1970; it is collected as the English first, and a Collins pre-publication sampler is also recorded. The exact Collins month could not be established…. A full-size Scribner book-club printing of 1970 exists and is the standard confusion: it is in the same green cloth with the gilt facsimile signature on the front board, but it lacks the A code on the copyright page and carries a blind-stamped indent on the rear board, and its jacket has no price at the flap. The copyright-page code and the rear board are the two checks. The later Scribner Library paperback….
• The Nick Adams Stories — 1972 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkThe first printing carries the Scribner code 'A-4.72 (V)' on the copyright page — the 'A' denoting the first edition, 4.72 the April 1972 production date, and the parenthetical letter the manufacturer/binding code. This refines the census claim: the point is not a bare 'A' but the full code, and its absence (or a code with a different date/letter) marks a later printing. Scribner's house practice since 1930 has…. US Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1972 is the true first and the edition collected — the census claim stands. The volume gathers 24 stories and sketches, eight of them previously unpublished, and appeared a decade after Hemingway's death. No contemporaneous British edition is documented in the sources consulted; the census claim of 'no UK counterpart' is consistent with what was found, but this is an absence…. No book-club issue is specifically documented for this title in the sources consulted. Generally, Scribner book-club copies do not carry the copyright-page 'A' code and are typically blind-stamped on the rear board with an unpriced jacket; a copy lacking 'A-4.72 (V)' is not the first printing whatever else it shows. The Bantam paperback and later Scribner reissues are reprints.
• The Garden of Eden — 1986 · Charles Scribner's Sons, New YorkThe first printing has "FIRST EDITION" stated on the copyright page with no printing statement beneath it — that absence is the decisive test, because Scribner carried the "First Edition" slug forward onto later printings and simply added a printing line (a copy of the fourth printing, for example, states "First Edition" and "Fourth Printing July, 1986" together). Bound in quarter cream cloth over brown…. US Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1986 is the true first of this text in any form: the novel is posthumous, edited down from Hemingway's long unfinished manuscript, and no earlier edition exists in any language, so there is no original-language or prior-publication precedence question. The first UK edition followed from Hamish Hamilton (London) in 1987 (ISBN 0-241-11998-7) and does not compete for precedence.…. Documented and common: the Book-of-the-Month Club main selection of this title was supplied from Scribner's fourth printing of July 1986 and carries the "First Edition" slug together with the added line "Fourth Printing July, 1986". This is the single most frequent misidentification for the book — buyers see the slug and stop reading. Later Scribner trade printings behave the same way, retaining the slug and….

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