Description

Easton Press leather edition of Ernest Hemingway's "Death in the Afternoon," a COLLECTOR'S edition, Introduction by William F. Buckley, Jr., Dedicated to his second wife, PAULINE PFEIFFER, illustrated by Richard Powers, one of the COLLECTED WORKS OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY series, published in 1990. Bound in chocolate brown leather, the book has camel tan French moire silk end leaves, acid-free paper, Symth-sewn binding, hubbed spine, acid-free paper, satin book marker, gold gilding on three edges---in near FINE condition---except for two small 'scratches' on bottom gilt---mentioned for accuracy. Ernest Hemingway, who lived from 1899-1961, was an American novelist and short story writer and winner of the 1954 NOBEL PRIZE in LITERATURE. Hemingway was married four times: Hadley Richardson, his second wife, an Arkansas heiress, Pauline Pfeiffer, third wife writer, Martha Gellhorn, and his fourth wife, Mary Walsh. "Death in the Afternoon" is a non-fiction book about the history, ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting. The book contains a deeper contemplation on the nature of fear and courage. Hemingway became a bullfighting aficionado after seeing the Pamplona Festival of San Fermin in the 1920s. He wrote about this experience in "The Sun Also Rises." In the introduction, William Buckley wrote: "I saw three fights in 1944 in Mexico, another fifty in 1948 and 1951-52." Hemingway estimated that he had seen 1500 bulls killed. In Chapter One, Hemingway wrote: "Once I remember GERTRUDE STEIN talking of bullfights spoke of her admiration for JOSELITO and showed me some pictures of him the ring and of herself and ALICE TOKLAS sitting in the front row of the wooden barreras at the bull ring at Valencia with Joselito and his brother GALLO below. . ." "As far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad about and judged by these moral standards, which I do not defend, the bullfight is very moral to me because I feel fine while it is going on and have a feeling of life and death and mortality and immortality, after it is over I feel very sad but very fine. . ." Hemingway wrote: "According to historians Pedro Romero, who was a matador in Spain at the time of the American revolution, killed five thousand bulls between 1771 and 1779 and lived to die in his bed at the age of ninety-five. "Marcial Lalanda is the most skillful of present matadors at getting the sword in, holding it high up on a level with his eyes, as he sights, taking one or more backward steps before he starts the voyage in and with the point of the blade tilted up, he enters, avoids the horns skillfully, and leaving the sword nearly always perfectly placed yet without there having been the least exposition or emotion in the killing. . . Vicente Barrera kills in worse style than Lalanda. . .Cagancho's cowardice when he has to kill is more than disgusting." "The only really great fight that Manolo Bienvenida made in all of 1931 was the last day of Pamplona when he was more afraid of the public and their anger at his previous cowardly performances than he was of the bulls." 487 pages. I offer combined shipping.