有钱也不一定买得到这些腕表 但还是忍不住跟你分享

“I like the ear-ly stuff”: the clas-sic mas-cu-line com-ment to make about the work of a well-known cre-ator, demon-strat-ing as it does the cul-tur-al con-sumer’s ded-i-ca-tion, purism, judg-men-tal rig-or, and even endurance (giv-en the rel-a-tive acces-si-bil-i-ty, in the intel-lec-tu-al as well as the col-lec-tor’s sens-es, of most “ear-ly stuff”). Now you have a chance to say it about that most osten-si-bly mas-cu-line of all 20th-cen-tu-ry Amer-i-can writ-ers, Ernest Hem-ing-way. Above, see the cov-er of a cov-et-ed edi-tion of the then-young “Papa“ ‘s very first book, 1923’s Three Sto-ries & Ten Poems. The print run num-bered only “300 copies, put out by friend and fel-low expa-tri-ate, the writer- pub-lish-er Robert McAl-mon,” writes Steve King at Today in Lit-er-a-ture. “Both had arrived in Paris in 1921, Hem-ing-way an unpub-lished twen-ty-two-year-old jour-nal-ist with a recent bride, a hand-ful of let-ters of intro-duc-tion pro-vid-ed by Sher-wood Ander-son, and a clear imper-a-tive: ‘All you have to do is write one true sen-tence.’ ”

Instead of shelling out to a rare-book deal-er for Three Sto-ries & Ten Poems — admire the sac-ri-fice involved though a true Hem-ing-wayite may — you can read even more of the Old Man and the Sea author’s ear-ly stuff in the free e?book embed-ded just above: 1946’s The First Forty Nine Sto-ries. It con-tains not just “Up in Michi-gan,” “Out of Sea-son,” and “My Old Man,” those three sto-ries of Hem-ing-way’s bound debut, but, yes, 46 more of his ear-li-est pub-lished pieces of short-form fic-tion. Today in Lit-er-a-ture quotes one notable con-tem-po-rary reac-tion to Three Sto-ries & Ten Poems, from a time before Hem-ing-way had become Hem-ing-way, much less Papa: “I should say that Hem-ing-way should stick to poet-ry and intel-li-gence and eschew the hot-ter emo-tions and the more turgid vision. Intel-li-gence 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 writ-ten such an astute ear-ly assess-ment of the ulti-mate lit-er-ary man’s man? A cer-tain Gertrude Stein.

Relat-ed Con-tent:

18 (Free) Books Ernest Hem-ing-way Wished He Could Read Again for the First Time

Sev-en Tips From Ernest Hem-ing-way on How to Write Fic-tion

Ernest Hem-ing-way Cre-ates a Read-ing List for a Young Writer, 1934

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham-burg-er Recipe

Col-in Mar-shall hosts and pro-duces Note-book on Cities and Cul-ture and writes essays on cities, lan-guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange-les, A Los Ange-les Primer. Fol-low him on Twit-ter at @colinmarshall or on Face-book.