Ernest Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises, 1926 - Susan Myrick's First Issue Copy in Morocco

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. The Sun Also Rises. First Edition, First Printing, First Issue, 1926. Susan Myrick's Copy in a Red and Black Morocco Design Binding.

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926.

First edition, first printing, first issue. Hanneman A6a. Octavo. Bound in a striking full red and black morocco design binding, exquisitely crafted and richly finished in gilt. The boards are decorated with a sweeping painted and onlaid design inspired by the muleta, the red cloth used by the matador in the final act of the bullfight: its curved, flowing forms travel across both covers in dramatic contrast against panels of deep black morocco, the whole enclosed and accented with elegant gilt tooling. The spine is similarly accomplished, with raised bands, decorative gilt motifs and dark red morocco labels lettered in gilt; hand-sewn endbands and vivid red, black and gold Spanish marbled endpapers complete the presentation. With the bookplates of Susan Myrick and Aaron B. Berndt to a preliminary blank.

An exceptional first issue of Ernest Hemingway's first major novel, one of the defining works of twentieth-century American literature. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons in October 1926, the first printing consisted of only 5,090 copies. This copy retains the principal first-issue point: the celebrated misprint "stoppped" for "stopped" on page 181, line 26. The copyright page bears the Scribner's seal and makes no reference to later printings.

The Sun Also Rises follows Jake Barnes, Lady Brett Ashley and their circle of American and British expatriates from Paris to the fiesta and bullfights of Pamplona. Drawing closely upon Hemingway's own experiences in France and Spain, the novel gave lasting literary expression to the post-war generation identified in Gertrude Stein's famous epigraph as "a lost generation." Its restrained, exact prose established the literary style with which Hemingway would become permanently associated.

The binding is particularly apposite to the novel. The bullfight provides the book with its central ritual of beauty, discipline, violence and fate, reaching its climax in the figure of Pedro Romero. Here, the repeated sweep of the red morocco across the boards recalls the movement of the matador's muleta, while the black panels and controlled gilt decoration lend the volume a sense of theatre and intensity. It is a highly accomplished visual interpretation of Hemingway's Spanish setting and of the novel's preoccupation with courage, grace under pressure and mortality.

This copy is further distinguished by its provenance, bearing the bookplate of Susan Dowdell Myrick (1893-1978), the American journalist and author who served as technical advisor and dialect consultant during the production of Gone with the Wind. A friend of Margaret Mitchell, Myrick was recommended by her to advise the film's production on Southern speech, costume and custom. A further bookplate records the ownership of Aaron B. Berndt.

Internally, the original 1926 text block displays the warm age toning characteristic of copies of this edition, together with occasional minor marking and small stains visible on preliminary leaves. The binding presents with great visual impact, the red and black morocco richly coloured, the gilt bright, and the Spanish marbled endpapers particularly effective. No dust jacket, the volume having been finely rebound.

A highly individual copy of the first edition, first printing, first issue of The Sun Also Rises, combining Hemingway's breakthrough novel with Susan Myrick provenance and an outstanding muleta-inspired morocco design binding perfectly attuned to the drama and atmosphere of the work.