In Our Time

HEMINGWAY, Ernest (1899-1961). in our time . Paris: three mountains press, 1924. First edition, number 46 of 170 copies on Rives handmade paper. in our time gathered six vignettes which had previously appeared in the Little Review , together with twelve other pieces, giving a total of eighteen on the author's experiences of newspapers, war, and bullfighting. Having heard of Edmund Wilson's interest in his writing, Hemingway smartly sent him a copy of his first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems —but he requested that Wilson hold off reviewing it until the publication of in our time . After the small "mosaic of modern violence" had appeared, Hemingway explained in a letter to Wilson (25 November 1923), "the two [books] together could make one review." According to Kenneth Lynn, the proposal to the only critic who, in Hemingway's opinion, possessed the wide curiosity, intellect, and reputation that really influential reviewing required, was well-conceived. Eleven months later in The Dial , Wilson heralded to the world of letters Hemingway's arrival as a prose writer of "the first distinction... In the dry compressed little vignettes of In Our Time , [he] has almost invented a form of his own ... [The] book has more artistic dignity than any other that has been written by an American about the period of the war" (Kenneth S. Lynn, Hemingway , New York, 1987, p. 268). While 300 copies were printed, just 170 “perfect” copies were published – the remainder having been damaged “by the imposition of the watermark against the frontispiece” (Grissom). Grissom A.2.1.a; Hanneman A2a. Small folio. Woodcut frontispiece portrait. Original illustrated boards (light rubbing to spine ends and board tips). Custom box.

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