Signed book: The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories. First edition, second state. NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1938. Hardcover with modern facsimile dust jacket, 6.25 x 8.5, 597 pages. Signed and inscribed on the first free end page in black ink, "Dear Kit Bryan: Fortunately I never saw it, But I wish we could have had the evening together! Ernest Hemingway." Inscribed above by one other, presumably a friend of the recipient, "To get the taste out of your mouth. C. S., le 5 avril 1940" Autographic condition: fine, with light toning to edges of signed page. Book condition: VG/VG. Accompanied by a beautiful custom-made clamshell case. Written while he was a correspondent covering the Spanish Civil War in 1937, The Fifth Column was Hemingway's only full-length play. Like so many others, Hemingway passed on attending its Theatre Guild production, which ran on Broadway from March 6th to May 18th, 1940. Critics decried the production as poorly scripted and boring, despite an able cast. The recipient's friend, "C. S.," who inscribed this volume during the play's Broadway run, apparently concurred with Hemingway's critique of the production, and thought Kit Bryan might better appreciate the story in its original form.
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