The Old Man And The Sea
by Ernest Hemingway
- Used
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Dronfield , Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
First edition, later printing of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1952. Beautiful hardcover copy of Hemingway's final published novella. With Hemingways signature debossed on the cover, and title in silver gilt on the spine.
The book is in generally good condition, with some marks to the cover. Pages are clean and unmarked, however as shown in the photos, the first blank page has been removed at some stage, and regrettably the dust jacket is missing.
Synopsis
This novella, only 140 pages, was first printed in its entirety in Life Magazine on September 1, 1952. It inspired a buying frenzy - selling over five million copies of the magazine in just two days! The story about an aging Cuban fisherman wrangling a large marlin in the gulf stream was written in 1951 in Cuba and published in 1952. In 1953, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and led to Hemingway's nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Man's struggle against nature is the resounding theme throughout the book as Hemingway portrays Santiago's travails as an experienced fisherman facing a dry-spell of 85 days before finally wrangling a prized marlin. Hemingway also highlights the indomitable spirit of man while illustrating his ideal of manliness and character in the strong and determined fisherman facing danger and discomfort without complaint and with resolution, both in the days it takes Santiago to kill the marlin, and as he fights off the sharks that end up destroying his prized catch before he reaches the coast. Some say that Hemingway's tale is a reflection of his own determination to prove his writing career was not over, and the portrayal of the sharks may echo the critics who had been claiming for the ten years that his writing career, after the successful release of For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940, was over. The book is dedicated "To Charlie Scribner And To Max Perkins," friends of Hemingway's that had passed away before the book came out. Max Perkins, who also edited F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, died in 1947 and Scribner, who was president of the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, died in 1952.
Read More: Identifying first editions of The Old Man And The Sea
Reviews
The Old Man and The Sea is an excellent novella for someone to read looking to get away from the troubles of life only to find that some troubles lead to the greatest reward of even though the reward is only a small amount.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Victoriagabrielcollectables (GB)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 1
- Title
- The Old Man And The Sea
- Author
- Ernest Hemingway
- Format/Binding
- Good, some staining to hardcover.
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- first, subsequent impression
- Binding
- Hardcover
- Publisher
- Charles Scribner's Sons
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1952
- Pages
- 140
- Weight
- 0.00 lbs
- Keywords
- ernest hemingway, old man and the sea, first
Terms of Sale
Victoriagabrielcollectables
About the Seller
Victoriagabrielcollectables
About Victoriagabrielcollectables
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...