With rare double-sided dustwrapper.

HEMINGWAY, Ernest ~ The Old Man and the Sea.

FIRST UK PRINTING. Jonathan Cape, London: 1952.

8vo., blue publisher's boards, lettered and decorated in bronze with motifs to upper cover and spine; contrasting painted label to backstrip with publisher's device to foot; together in the pictorial dustwrapper with striking artwork by Hans Tisdall to recto; and printed in orange and black to verso; unclipped (7s. 6d. net); THE BOOK a very good plus copy, slight sunning and pushing to spine tips; lightly spotted to outer edge and endpapers; with Foyles bookseller sticker to front paste-down, and contemporary owner's name and date in ink to front free endpaper; THE WRAPPER exceptionally bright, likely due to being used the opposite way around, with vertical creases to panels corresponding with the alternative verso wrapper; lightly spotted to the flaps with some short closed tears chipping, the largest at head of spine; the verso with browning to the backstrips and folds, and some light even shelfwear. The wrapper is protected in a removable Brodart archival cover. First UK edition, first printing. Together with the rare double-sided variant wrapper, presumed first issue. First published in 'Life' magazine in 1952, Hemingway's most famous short novella sold over five million copies within two days. It was followed by the Scribner edition in the U.S. just a few days later, and here, in the U.K. shortly after that. The cover of the U.K. edition, possibly the more desirable for its vibrant use of colour, was designed by Hans Tisdall, an artist who had created dozens of dustwrappers for Jonathan Cape over a period of several years. Tisdall had also produced the U.K. dustwrapper for Hemingway's 'Across the River and Into the Trees' (1950) and went on to do 'A Moveable Feast' (1964). The book was one of the last to be produced by Hemingway during his lifetime, and follows the story of an old fisherman, Santiago, who sets out on a small boat in order to catch a giant marlin. The story itself had initially been told to the author in 1930 by the Cuban guide Carlos Gutiérrez, and was also inspired by Hemingway's own experience in the gulf stream, where he often went big game fishing. It was undoubtedly 'The Old Man and the Sea' which helped to cement Hemingway's Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. A wonderful example, scarce with these attributes.

BINDING: Hardcover
CONDITION: Very Good +
JACKET: Very Good +