For Whom The Bell Tolls, Signed by Ernest Hemingway, Later Edition, 1955

Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls. New York: Charles Schribner’s Sons, 1955. Later edition. Signed and inscribed by Hemingway on front free endpaper. Octavo. Rebound in ¼ black leather and burgundy cloth boards with gilt tooling to the spine. Presented with a new archival slipcase.

This is a later edition of the classic Hemingway novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Published in 1955, this printing was signed and inscribed by Hemingway two years later, in 1957, while aboard the liner Ile de France. Written on the front free endpaper, the inscription reads, "To Robert Stein / with best wishes from his friend / Ernest Hemingway / Ile de France 1957" in blue ink. 

While visiting Paris in November of 1956, Hemingway was reminded of several trunks he had stored in the Ritz Hotel in 1928 and never retrieved. Upon re-claiming and opening the trunks, he discovered they were filled with notebooks and writing from his Paris years. Excited about the discovery, he began to shape the recovered work into his memoir A Moveable Feast. The Hemingways left with the trunks for Cuba in January 1957 aboard the liner Ile de France. His wife Mary wrote, “The Ile goes… on a Caribbean cruise which touches at Matanzas [Cuba] and Papa has decided to stay aboard her, thus simplifying the transport homewards of our 33 pieces of luggage.” 

For Whom the Bell Tolls is an unembellished, blunt commentary on the nature of war and death. The book draws inspiration from Hemingway’s time as a war correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance during the Spanish Civil War.

Hemingway first started writing For Whom the Bell Tolls in Cuba and later finished it in Sun Valley, Idaho. It was first published in October of 1940 by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, and received strong praise. "This is the best book Ernest Hemingway has written, the fullest, the deepest, the truest. It will, I think, be one of the major novels of American literature. Hemingway has struck universal chords and he has struck them vibrantly" (J. Donald Adams).

Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American author and journalist. His distinctive writing style, characterized by economy of words and dry understatement, strongly influenced 20th-century fiction, as did his life of adventure and his public image. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works during his lifetime; a further three novels, four collections of short stories, and three non-fiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are now considered classics of American literature.

CONDITION: 

Very good condition. Octavo. Paper is healthy, save light toning to first few pages. Hemingway’s inscription and signature found on the front free endpaper.  Inscription reads: “ "To Robert Stein / with best wishes from his friend / Ernest Hemingway / Ile de France 1957" in blue ink. Inscription is legible, with only faint fading. Book has been archivally rebound in quarter black leather and burgundy cloth boards. Spine has gilt embossed tooling and titles, and raised bands. New archival cloth slipcase, with an inlaid portrait of Hemingway on the front.

Book Dimensions: 8 1/2" H x 5 7/8" W x 1 1/2" D.

With Slipcase: 9" H x 6" W x 2"D.