Books and Manuscripts

"If with your signature I should value it more"

Ernest Hemingway's Presentation Copy of the Rare 1924 Edition of "in our time" Inscribed to Maxwell Perkins, Marking the Beginning of One of the 20th Century's Most Legendary Literary Relationships

Paris: Printed at the Three Mountains Press and for sale at Shakespeare & Company, 1924. Tall 8vo. 30, (2) pp. First and very limited edition, #8/170 numbered copies, printed on Rives hand-made paper. An important association copy, signed and inscribed by Hemingway on front free endpaper to his soon-to-be editor at Charles Scribner's Sons, Maxwell Perkins, ca. June 1925: "For Maxwell E. Perkins / With very best wishes / from Ernest Hemingway / Paris 1925." Illustrated with a woodcut frontispiece portrait of Hemingway by Henry Strater. Original tan paper-covered boards, printed in black and in red, lower spine starting, scattered dampstaining to front board, scattered wear to extremities; all edges untrimmed; typical discoloration to endpapers; ink stain at bottom of frontispiece. A very well-preserved and completely unsophisticated copy. Hanneman A2.A; Cohn pp. 16-18

Perhaps the most consequential association copy of any Hemingway title: the author's presentation of his first collection of short stories to his future editor at Scribner's, the legendary Maxwell Perkins (1884-1947). The two had begun a professional courtship just eight weeks earlier, which not only would lead eight months later to the genesis of one of American literature's most significant editorial relationships, but also last until Perkins' death in 1947, and result in the publication of Hemingway's most enduring works, including The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).

Perkins is celebrated for his discovery and editorship of authors such as Thomas Wolfe, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it was Fitzgerald who first recommended Hemingway to Perkins in an October 10, 1924 letter writing of a "young man named Ernest Hemmingway (sic), who lives in Paris, (an American) writes for the Transatlantic Review + has a brilliant future. Ezra Pound published a collection of his short pieces in Paris.... I'd look him up right away. He's the real thing." (1)

That "collection of his short pieces" was in our time, first published in March 1924 by Three Mountains Press, in Paris, in a small run of just 170 copies. It was the seventh, and final, installment of The Inquest into the State of Contemporary English Prose, a series of short novels by contemporary writers, edited by Pound. The book was not available in the United States, and Perkins spent the next few weeks laboriously tracking one down, finally securing one in Paris after great difficulty, which he had shipped to him in New York in December.

When Perkins finally read the book in February 1925, he was impressed, and immediately sent off an introductory letter to Hemingway, writing: "I have just read 'in our time' published by the Three Mountains Press. I had heard that you were doing very remarkable writing and was most anxious to see it and after a great deal of effort and correspondence, I finally did manage to get this book which seems not to be in circulation in this country...I was greatly impressed by the power in the scenes and incidents pictured, and by the effectiveness of their relation to each other, and I am venturing to write to you to ask whether you have anything that you would allow us to consider as publishers...It occured to me, however, that you might very well be writing something which would not have these practical objections and in any case, whatever you are writing, we should be most interested to consider." (2)

At the time of Perkins's note, Hemingway was spending the winter skiing in Austria, and thus did not read it until he returned to Paris in April. The timing for Perkins was poor, for in early March, Hemingway had signed a contract with Boni & Liveright to publish the first American edition of in our time, as well as his next two books. Although Hemingway was disappointed in the potential missed opportunity, he nonetheless wrote to Perkins about his excitement in Scribners's interest on April 15th, while also informing him of his contractual obligations to Liveright, and concluded his letter by noting, "In Our Time is out of print and I've been trying to buy one to have myself now I hear it is valuable, so that probably explains your difficulty in getting it. I'm awfully glad you liked it and thank you again for writing me about a book." (3)

Two weeks later, on April 28th, Perkins wrote back, asking Hemingway to remember him if the chance for Scribner's to publish him ever arose, and, in an act of great generosity, also included his own hard-won copy of in our time, adding that, "certainly you ought to have it long before me. Please accept your book from me." (4) His only request was that if Hemingway were to ever come across another copy of the book, would he kindly send it to him, and "if with your signature I should value it more." (5)

Hemingway received Perkins's letter with his gift on May 11th, and although he had indicated in his prior letter that the book was difficult to get, this was, according to Hemingway scholar Michael Reynolds, "A slight duplicity, for Sylvia Beach was still selling copies in the fall of 1925. Feeling guilty about his lie, Hemingway picked up a fresh copy at Shakespeare and Company which he signed and sent to Perkins in June." (6) Hemingway sent a letter with that volume, in which he wrote, "I can't tell you how much I appreciated your sending me the copy of In Our Time. It was one of those very pleasant things that sometimes happen to one and which give a good feeling whenever they are remembered. Thank you ever so much. Now I have finally gotten hold of another copy and am mailing it to you with this letter...." (7) Perkins received this copy sometime before July 15, at which point he sent a thank you response to Hemingway: "The copy of 'In Our Time' has come, with your inscription; and I'm delighted to have it, I can tell you. Many thanks!" (8) This is the copy we are offering here.

As Hemingway's relationship with Boni & Liveright soured over the next six months, he would remember Perkins's kindness. Liveright had published the first American edition of In Our Time in October 1925 but Hemingway was frustrated with the firm's editorial interference, and was looking to get out his contract. A clause in it stipulated that if Liveright rejected his next novel, Hemingway would be released from his obligation to them. So, in an act of what was most likely intentional sabotage, his next manuscript submission was The Torrents of Spring, an outright satire of the work of Sherwood Anderson, one of Liveright's principal authors. When they unsurprisingly rejected it, Hemingway was free. Following the formal termination of that relationship, on February 10, 1926, Hemingway and Perkins met for the first time in person in New York, resulting a week later in Hemingway signing a new contract with Scribner's. By the end of May, Scribner's had published The Torrents of Spring, and in October, they released Hemingway's first major work, The Sun Also Rises.

This is almost certainly the first time this copy of in our time has ever been offered at auction, as it is not listed in Matthew J. Bruccoli and C.E. Frazer Clark's Hemingway at Auction (1973), nor can we find it registered in any other record. Already scarce since its publication almost 100 years ago, only Hemingway's presentation copy to Sylvia Beach can compare in terms of historical and literary significance, and that volume has sold at auction five times: in 1936, 1948, 1968, 1977, and most recently in 2004, for $321,600.

The lot includes a copy of the book Ebionite, by Pauline Francis Stephens, inscribed by the author to Perkins in 1937, and a copy of Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris 1844), inscribed by Perkins's grandfather, art critic and author Charles Callahan "Charlie" Perkins (1823-86) to Charlie's brother, E(dward). N(ewton). (Paine) Perkins (1820-99), on April 18, 1845, his 25th birthday.

Footnotes

1. Bruccoli, Matthew J. and Judith Baughman, The Sons of Maxwell Perkins, p. 22.

2. Bruccoli, Matthew J. The Only Thing That Counts, p. 33.

3. Bruccoli, Matthew J. The Only Thing That Counts, p. 34.

4. The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 2, 1923-1925, p. 348, note 2; edited by Sandra Spanier, Albert J. DeFazio III, Robert W. Trogdon.

5. Ibid.

6. Reynolds, Michael. Hemingway: The Paris Years, p. 291.

7. The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 2, 1923-1925, pp. 347-348; edited by Sandra Spanier, Albert J. DeFazio III, Robert W. Trogdon.

8. Perkins to Hemingway, July 15, 1925. Princeton University, Firestone Library, Special Collections.