A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway – 1929 | Scribner First Edition

This 1929 first American edition of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, exhibits all correct first-issue points, including the publisher’s seal on the copyright page, and lacks later impression indicators. Hemingway’s influential antiwar novel, drawn from his personal experience serving with the ambulance corps during the Italian campaign of World War I, narrates the wartime romance between American expatriate Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley amid soldiers’ cynicism, displacement, and military conflict.

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Farewell to Arms
• Author: Ernest Hemingway
• Publisher: Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York
• Edition: First Edition, 1929
• Format: Octavo, single volume
• Binding: Black cloth, gilt titles to spine and upper cover, facsimile jacket
• Size: 7.75 in × 5.5 in (19.5 cm × 14 cm)
• Collation: [4], 355 pp
• Provenance: Early ink ownership of “Donisa Nelova”
• Reference(s): ​ Hanneman 8a

Condition:

Bound in black publisher’s cloth with gilt-stamped titling to spine and upper board. Gilt shows light age toning but remains legible. The spine is square and intact, with corners only gently rubbed. The included dust jacket is a modern reproduction produced from the 1929 Scribner original, featuring correct typography and layout. Page edges are uniformly toned; top edge retains original color. Internally clean and complete, with no foxing or marginalia. Ownership signature appears on the front free endpaper in ink, consistent with 20th-century usage.

Why Collect This?

• True first printing with no subsequent impressions listed
• Early personal inscription on the endpaper provides traceable provenance
• Among the most influential American war novels of the 20th century
• Key entry for Hemingway collectors and those focused on modernist fiction