The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway - First Edition

Set in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Havana, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ tells the story of a young boy, an old man, and a giant fish. It is the last book of Hemingway’s that was published in his lifetime, yet still lives on as a gem in his body of work.

Our copy is a first edition, third impression from December 1952, published by Jonathan Cape. The first impression was released in September that same year, already going through two rounds of printing in three months.

Our edition comes with its original dust jacket, which is in a plastic covering to protect it, but is slightly sun-faded on the spine.

The inside flap of the dust jacket sings praises of Hemingway’s last living work, saying that: ‘What can be confidently asserted is that it [the book] is a masterly example of literary art, simple and magnificent. Every word in it is right; not one word could have been added: in no other form could the story have been told so effectively.’ It is perhaps this effectiveness of language which means that this book, because of its brevity, is actually a novella.

Hemingway’s other popular works, ‘A Farewell to Arms’ (1929), and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ (1940) had already been published, and others like, ‘The Garden of Eden’ were released posthumously. However, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ earned Hemingway the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, and a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954 – it is nothing short of one of his most acclaimed and well-loved books.

It is being sold for £50.

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