The Old Man and the Sea

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952. First edition. Very Good/Very Good. A Very Good copy in like dust jacket. Some fading and a dampstain to spine, minor edgewear, endpapers a bit toned, and a contemporary bookplate to upper free endpaper. In the first issue jacket (with panel text in brown and no Nobel Prize announcement). Jacket price clipped (with clip affecting one letter), small contemporary price sticker to inside of front flap, some edgewear, and slight chip to back panel.

The final work of fiction published in the author's lifetime, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and cited by the Nobel Prize Committee, The Old Man and the Sea cemented Hemingway's legacy as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. The story follows the tribulations of an aging and suddenly unlucky fisherman, Santiago, as he tries to catch a gigantic marlin in the Straits of Florida. Ultimately, Santiago's story is an existential metaphor through which Hemingway explored in a seemingly simple way the dignity and biblical nature of an old man's trials at the end of life. It was a massive success. The book was originally published in full in an issue of Life Magazine, which subsequently sold 5 million copies in less than a week. "No outbursts of spite or false theatricalism impede the smooth rush of its narrative. Within the sharp restrictions imposed by the very nature of his story Mr. Hemingway has written with sure skill. Here is the master technician once more at the top of his form, doing superbly what he can do better than anyone else" (contemporary New York Times review). Very Good in Very Good dust jacket.