Hemingway, Ernest | First edition, presentation copy of Death in the Afternoon

Hemingway, Ernest

Death in the Afternoon. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1932

8vo. Publisher’s black cloth gilt; spine shaken, lightly bumped. First issue dust jacket; head and foot of spine chipped, spine lightly toned, areas of restoration to joints and head and foot of spine, creasing. Clamshell box.

First edition, presentation copy of Death In The Afternoon, signed and inscribed: “To Eleanore Havre / remembering aperitifs and a confused itinerary set forth at the Deux Magots / Ernest Hemingway.”

A warmly inscribed copy of Hemingway’s eighth book, evoking his Paris years and the literary milieu that shaped so much of his early work. Les Deux Magots, referenced in the inscription, was one of the central gathering places for the expatriate writers and artists of the 1920s, and features prominently in Hemingway’s later memoir A Moveable Feast. The recipient, Eleanore Havre, was connected to Pauline Pfeiffer, Hemingway’s second wife, reportedly as a former roommate during their time in Paris; her presence in this inscription situates the book within the close personal network that defined Hemingway’s life during the interwar years.

Death in the Afternoon is Hemingway’s authoritative study of bullfighting, blending history, technique, and philosophy with his broader exploration of bravery, ritual, and confrontation with mortality. As one of the major nonfiction works of his career, it exemplifies his interest in the structures—both cultural and psychological—that underlie acts of courage, and it remains a monument to his engagement with Spanish culture and its traditions.

REFERENCES

Hanneman A10a

PROVENANCE

Eleanore Havre (presentation inscription) — Bonham’s San Francisco, 14 February 2010, Lot 1133