Old Man and the Sea, The Hardcover - 1964
by Hemingway, Ernest
- Used
- fair
- Hardcover
Description
Standard delivery: 1 to 4 days
Details
- Title Old Man and the Sea, The
- Author Hemingway, Ernest
- Binding Hardcover
- Edition Canadian School Edition
- Condition Used - Fair
- Publisher S. J. Reginald Saunders and Company, Ltd.
- Date 1964
- Bookseller's Inventory # 001480
About Fully Booked Ontario, Canada
For a good portion of the 1990's, our family was interested in the idea of entering the used book business. We are all avid readers, book lovers, and book collectors who cannot pass a bookstore without popping in. Family trips to the library and our local used bookstore were a regularity while growing up. With each of us having interests in different genres (with a little overlapping here and there), we cover a lot of bases. The thought of having a store of our own was appealing, and the hunt was on - both for stock and a location.
We thought to combine under one roof many different things that would appeal to readers and book lovers. Not only used books, but some new items as well. Bookmarks (to ward off dog-eared pages), bookends (to keep those out-of-control collections under control), bookplates (to label books on the "Can I borrow that?" circuit to ensure that they always found their way home), book repair tape (to lend a helping hand to collectors with tattered favourites in their collections), and so on. With an interest in book-themed knick knacks as well, we had two sides to our would-be business: books and knick-knacks. Hence the business was born.
In the early part of 1998 we bought a commercial property, and in the summer we first opened our doors in a storefront in Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada. With start-up stock consisting of a garage full of books hand-picked for just such a venture that we purchased from someone who changed their plans, we were in business.
For several years we operated in this storefront, growing our business and learning about the industry and the backbone of it - the customers. It was very satisfying to be present at the end of someone's book quest, as we were quite often. Many a time we heard shouts of joy from somewhere in the shop as customers happened upon just what they'd been looking for (oftentimes for quite a while). At other times, people would approach us with bits and pieces of information that they remembered from long ago favourites in hopes that we could at least help them come up with an author or title to help in their search, which we often times did, with the book in hand. And when we couldn't come up with anything on our own, we would pick the brains of other customers in conversation, or turn to the internet for help for them. For us, quality and selection of stock go hand-in-hand with customer service. One isn't much good without the other.
But times, people, places, and lives change and after several years in our storefront we made a change of our own - in 2004 we relocated to the internet. Now a home-based business in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, we are gradually bringing our inventory online here.
We carry used paperbacks, hardbacks, and magazines for both adults and children. We have thousands upon thousands of books that are not yet listed for sale on the internet, but are gradually making their way there.
Fully Booked sells on Biblio.com, as well as on other online venues: abebooks.com (as Past Pages), alibris.com (under Lisa Van Munster), amazon.ca (as resurrectedreads), Etsy.com (as OutOfOurHands), and from time to time on ebay.ca (as littleredreadinghood or thebigbadbookseller).
About this book
This novella, only 140 pages, was first printed in its entirety in Life Magazine on September 1, 1952. It inspired a buying frenzy - selling over five million copies of the magazine in just two days!
The story about an aging Cuban fisherman wrangling a large marlin in the gulf stream was written in 1951 in Cuba and published in 1952. In 1953, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and led to Hemingway's nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
Man's struggle against nature is the resounding theme throughout the book as Hemingway portrays Santiago's travails as an experienced fisherman facing a dry-spell of 85 days before finally wrangling a prized marlin. Hemingway also highlights the indomitable spirit of man while illustrating his ideal of manliness and character in the strong and determined fisherman facing danger and discomfort without complaint and with resolution, both in the days it takes Santiago to kill the marlin, and as he fights off the sharks that end up destroying his prized catch before he reaches the coast. Some say that Hemingway's tale is a reflection of his own determination to prove his writing career was not over, and the portrayal of the sharks may echo the critics who had been claiming for the ten years that his writing career, after the successful release of For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940, was over.
The book is dedicated "To Charlie Scribner And To Max Perkins," friends of Hemingway's that had passed away before the book came out. Max Perkins, who also edited F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, died in 1947 and Scribner, who was president of the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons, died in 1952.
First Edition Identification
First edition print run was 50,000 copies by Charles Scribner's Sons; New York. First edition points include the Scribner "A" and colophon on the copyright page, the publisher's pale blue cloth with Hemingway's autograph stamped in blind on the upper cover & the spine lettered in silver. There should be no mention of the Pulitzer or Nobel Prize or an ISBN number. On the inside flap of the blue-tinted dust jacket, the original price of $3.00 should be listed. There are two variations of the first edition dust jacket. One has a blue-tinted photo of Hemingway and the other has an olive-tinted photo; one is not thought to be better or more valuable than the other.
The last work published by Hemingway during his lifetime, signed first editions of The Old Man and the Sea can sell for upwards of $15,000 - $17,000.