Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon—Signed by the Author
Halcyon House later edition, New York, with full-color frontispiece by Juan Gris

Few books capture Hemingway’s creative philosophy as completely as Death in the Afternoon, his 1932 meditation on the Spanish bullfight—and, by extension, on courage, craft, death, and the discipline of writing itself. It is here that he articulated his famous “iceberg theory” of prose, making this volume essential not merely to aficionados of the corrida but to anyone who cares about how Hemingway built his sentences.

This copy carries the distinction that matters most to collectors: it is signed by Ernest Hemingway on the title page, in fountain pen. Hemingway’s signature is among the most sought-after in twentieth-century American literature, and signed copies of Death in the Afternoon—a personal favorite of the author’s—appear on the market far less frequently than his signed fiction.

Documentation: The signature is accompanied by both a Letter of Authenticity and a Certificate of Authenticity from ASA (Authentic Signature Authenticity). Each document bears ASA’s tamper-evident hologram, is hand-signed by the examining authenticator, and is uniquely numbered with a corresponding entry in ASA’s online verification database, allowing the certification to be confirmed independently at any time. Both documents accompany the book and are pictured in the listing photographs.

First published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1932, the book was later reissued by Halcyon House, the New York reprint imprint associated with Blue Ribbon Books, which brought important literary works to a broader readership in handsome, affordable editions during the late 1930s and 1940s. Crucially, the Halcyon House printing preserved the striking element that distinguished the original: the full-color frontispiece of Juan Gris’s painting “The Bullfighter” (El Torero), the Cubist master’s arresting image that Hemingway himself selected to open the book. The frontispiece remains bright and well-registered in this copy.

Condition: Very Good. The binding is sound and square, text block clean, with the color frontispiece intact and vivid. Honest signs of age commensurate with a volume of this vintage; please see photographs for details.

A signed Hemingway is always an event. A signed Death in the Afternoon—the book in which he laid bare his theory of writing against the backdrop of the bullring—is a cornerstone acquisition for any serious collection of American literature. Sold with full authentication documentation as described.