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First edition, sole printing, one of 300 copies of Hemingway's first book; a fragile rarity in stunning condition. "No other writer. stepped so suddenly into fame, or destroyed with such insouciance so many other writers or ways of writing or became such an immediate symbol of an age" (Connolly). Three Stories & Ten Poems was printed in Dijon by Maurice Darantiere, who printed Ulysses the year before, and was published by Robert McAlmon's firm. The work marks the first appearance in print of the three stories "Up in Michigan", "Out of Season", and "My Old Man", as well as the four poems "Oklahoma", "Captives", "Montparnasse", and "Along With Youth". The remaining six poems were first printed in the January 1923 issue of Poetry magazine, under the general title "Wanderings". The edition contains some of the earliest surviving writings by Hemingway, whose first wife Hadley Richardson lost a suitcase stuffed with his manuscripts in 1922. "No less concerned about this first publication than he was about his first child" (Mellow, p. 239), Hemingway was directly involved in the book's production and liaised with Gertrude Stein on the typographical cover design. Edmund Wilson's prescient review of the young Hemingway followed his second book, In Our Time (1924): "His prose is of the first distinction, [demonstrating] a naiveté of language often passing into the colloquialism of the character dealt with, which serves actually to convey profound emotions and complex states of mind. It is a distinctively American development in prose. [Hemingway] is rather strikingly original." Connolly 49; GRISSOM A.1.1.a; HANNEMAN A1a. James R. Mellow, Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences, 1992; Edmund Wilson, writing in The Dial, October 1924. Octavo. Original blue-grey wrappers, covers lettered in black, edges uncut. Housed in a custom blue cloth folding box. Light creasing and a couple of nicks, else fresh. A fine copy.
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