For Whom the Bell Tolls. by HEMINGWAY, Ernest - 1940

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,, 1940. Inscribed by Mr and Mrs Hemingstein First edition, early printing, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "For Muriel and Owen Johnson, with all best wishes, Ernest Hemingway". Additionally inscribed by the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, Hemingway's third wife and the dedicatee, as "Mrs Hemingstein" below her dedication: "and also for Missy and Johnny, with love from Mrs Hemingstein". Ernest Hemingway variously signed letters as "Huck von Hemingstein", "Ernest Buck Hemingstein", and "Huckmanship von Hemingstein", "Hemingstein" being a schoolboy nickname that stuck (Ross). Gellhorn adopted it as a pet name for Hemingway, using it a letter sent in February 1937: "Hemingstein, I am very fond of you. Marty" (quoted in Kert, p. 294). The two began an affair later that year while reporting on the civil war together in Spain. They married on 22 November 1940, the same year he published this work. Before their marriage, Gellhorn drafted a mock prenuptial using the name Hemingstein: "I, the undersigned, Mrs Martha Wasp Fathouse Pig D. Bongie Hemingstein, guarantee and promise never to brutalize my present and future husband in any way whatsoever" (19 January 1940; quoted in Moorehead, p. 196). The novel was inspired by Hemingway's experiences in Spain, and many of the characters in this graphic exploration of the brutality of war are based on real people, some semi-fictionalized, others drawn directly from life. It was adapted for screen in 1943, directed by Sam Wood and starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress. In total, there were six printings produced from October 1940 to the end of the year. This copy falls somewhere between the second and sixth printings, likely dating it to around the time of the Hemingway's marriage, with the title page still dated 1940, but without the "A" on the copyright page which denotes first printing. From 1943, Scribner's began issuing the book in binding colours other than the beige found in the earlier printings. Octavo. Original beige cloth, spine lettered in black on red ground, front cover with facsimile signature stamped in black, top edge brown, fore edge untrimmed. Spine rubbed, minor bumps to corners, faint soiling to bottom edge of book block, browning to endpapers, a very good copy. Grissom A17; Hanneman A18. Bernice Kert, The Hemingway Women, 1983; Caroline Moorehead, Martha Gellhorn: A Life, 2004; Lillian Ross, "Hemingway Told Me Things", New Yorker, 16 May 1999.