[12] (incl. prelim. blanks), 358, [1] pp., with pp. [60-64] blank. 7x4½, original blue printed wrappers. Limited to 300 copies. First Edition.

Very rare first edition of Ernest Hemingway's first book, the cornerstone of any Hemingway collection. As the first book by one of the most influential and widely-read American authors of the twentieth century, whose impact transcended both language and nationality, it is of prime importance. This is the Frederick Baldwin Adams Jr. copy, with his small bookplate on the inside of the front wrapper. Frederick B. Adams, Jr. (1910-2001), one of the most celebrated bibliophiles of our time, was for over twenty years the director of the Morgan Library. The present copy is in remarkably fine condition, with contents unopened, truly exceptional. Six of the poems were first published in Poetry magazine, but the remainder of the poems, and the three stories ("Up In Michigan"; "Out of Season"; and "My Old Man"), made there first appearance in this little book. The latter two were republished in In Our Time (1924), but "Up in Michigan" was not republished until 1938 in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories. The book was published by Robert McAlmon at the Contact Publishing Co. during the summer (probably July) of 1923, and printed at Dijon by Maurice Darantiere. On the back of the wrapper is the printed notice that Hemingway is the author of In Our Time, indicating that the latter title was planned to appear before the present one, but it was nearly two years before In Our Time appeared.