Ernest HEMINGWAY. Green Hills of Africa. NY & London: Scribner's, 1935. 1st ed , 1st printing

From the Dobo collection.

The first 36 lots in this sale are from the collection of Francis Dobo (1908-1998)

Ernest HEMINGWAY (1899-1961). Green Hills of Africa … decorations by Edward Shenton. New York & London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1935. Octavo (8 1/8 x 5 ½  inches; 206 x 140 mm). Decorative title vignette, head- and tailpieces, all after Shenton. (Very light overall toning). Original light green cloth, spine lettered in gilt on black ground, spine decorated in gilt, facsimile of the author's signature blocked in gilt on the upper cover (Spine and edges of boards browned, head of spine chipped, lettering on spine dulled).

Provenance: Francis F. Dobo (penciled inscription to front free endpaper ‘Dobo / 1935’).

First edition, first printing with the ‘A’ on the verso of the title. The author’s second non-fiction book: the story his big game hunting expedition to what is now Tanzania, and a lot more.  "Mixing humor, flashbacks, literary pontification, and self-exposure with his fable on aesthetics, Hemingway once again wrote outside the reception range of the critics" (ANB).

Francis Dobo: the “epitome of a 20th Century intellectual” Hungarian born Francis F. Dobo (1908-1998) was an important figure in the world of publishing, contemporary literature and photography for over half a century. He was lifelong friends with the renowned Hungarian masters of candid photography, Brassaï and André Kertész, first in Hungary and later in Paris in the 1930s. It was in Paris he encountered Henry Miller, Louis-Ferdinand Celine and Raymond Queneau: he corresponded and supported Miller from then on, and subsequently became Queneau’s U.S. agent.  Love of books and literature seems to have been a family trait: his uncle was Gabriel Wells (1861-1946), one of the two most important rare book dealers of his generation. The present selection includes a small number of books which belonged to Wells, with the rest being a cross section of the best of the contemporary literature which was such an important part of Francis’ life. William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Koestler, Christopher Isherwood, Norman Mailer, Franz Kafka are all here !