Auctions | September 28, 2015

Presentation First Edition of Hemingway’s “Green Hills of Africa” at AntiquarianAuctions #46

Green Hills of Africa 1.jpg

Ernest Hemingway

Green Hills of Africa

Published: Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1935

Edition: First Edition

Original publisher's green cloth, dust jacket. Presentation copy signed and inscribed by Hemingway to close friend, Guy Hickock: "For Guy (look what/ I got out of your scrapbook/ now) with much/ affection, respect and the/ wish to be drunk with soon/ again/ Ernest".

Estimate: $20,000-25,000

Guy Hickock was an American journalist who began working for the Brooklyn Eagle in 1914, then a major publication. After World War I, Hickock moved to France, where he opened up a Paris bureau for the Eagle in 1918. The Paris centre also served as a travel hub for Americans in Paris, which is likely where Hickock met Ernest Hemingway. Despite Hickock being over a decade Hemingway's senior, the two were close friends in the 1920's, with Hickock assisting Hemingway as he worked in Paris and travelled abroad. In 1927, the two travelled together to Italy, a trip which would become the basis for Hemingway's short story "Che Ti Dice La Patria?" as well as an inspiration for Hickock's own journal articles. [The Hemingway Review 25.]

Originally published serially in Scribner's Magazine, Green Hills of Africa is Hemingway's second non-fiction book, based on his 1933 safari in East Africa. The text is divided into four parts: "Pursuit and Conversation," "Pursuit Remembered," "Pursuit and Failure," and "Pursuit as Happiness." In a similar style to his first non-fiction work, Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway interweaves his recounts of hunting various animals with his vehement criticisms of contemporary authors. 

As John Chamberlain wrote in his 1935 review for The New York Times, "With one hand he tears out the entrails of a gazelle and strips the skin clean; with the other he rips the hide from Malcom Cowley or Waldo Frank. It is the most literary hunting trip on record."

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Auction #46: 8 - 15 October 2015

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