Ernest Hemingway’s Very First Published Stories, Free as an eBook

“I like the ear­ly stuff”: the clas­sic mas­cu­line com­ment to make about the work of a well-known cre­ator, demon­strat­ing as it does the cul­tur­al con­sumer’s ded­i­ca­tion, purism, judg­men­tal rig­or, and even endurance (giv­en the rel­a­tive acces­si­bil­i­ty, in the intel­lec­tu­al as well as the col­lec­tor’s sens­es, of most “ear­ly stuff”). Now you have a chance to say it about that most osten­si­bly mas­cu­line of all 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can writ­ers, Ernest Hem­ing­way. Above, see the cov­er of a cov­et­ed edi­tion of the then-young “Papa“ ‘s very first book, 1923’s Three Sto­ries & Ten Poems. The print run num­bered only “300 copies, put out by friend and fel­low expa­tri­ate, the writer- pub­lish­er Robert McAl­mon,” writes Steve King at Today in Lit­er­a­ture. “Both had arrived in Paris in 1921, Hem­ing­way an unpub­lished twen­ty-two-year-old jour­nal­ist with a recent bride, a hand­ful of let­ters of intro­duc­tion pro­vid­ed by Sher­wood Ander­son, and a clear imper­a­tive: ‘All you have to do is write one true sen­tence.’ ”

Instead of shelling out to a rare-book deal­er for Three Sto­ries & Ten Poems — admire the sac­ri­fice involved though a true Hem­ing­wayite may — you can read even more of the Old Man and the Sea author’s ear­ly stuff in the free e‑book embed­ded just above: 1946’s The First Forty Nine Sto­ries. It con­tains not just “Up in Michi­gan,” “Out of Sea­son,” and “My Old Man,” those three sto­ries of Hem­ing­way’s bound debut, but, yes, 46 more of his ear­li­est pub­lished pieces of short-form fic­tion. Today in Lit­er­a­ture quotes one notable con­tem­po­rary reac­tion to Three Sto­ries & Ten Poems, from a time before Hem­ing­way had become Hem­ing­way, much less Papa: “I should say that Hem­ing­way should stick to poet­ry and intel­li­gence and eschew the hot­ter emo­tions and the more turgid vision. Intel­li­gence and a great deal of it is a good thing to use when you have it, it’s all for the best.” And who could have writ­ten such an astute ear­ly assess­ment of the ulti­mate lit­er­ary man’s man? A cer­tain Gertrude Stein.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

18 (Free) Books Ernest Hem­ing­way Wished He Could Read Again for the First Time

Sev­en Tips From Ernest Hem­ing­way on How to Write Fic­tion

Ernest Hem­ing­way Cre­ates a Read­ing List for a Young Writer, 1934

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.