Book covers are time stamp and time capsule. They not only reflect the design standards of the era in which they were produced, they often intimately remind us where we were in our lives when we first experienced the book.
That’s why first editions can be so striking—often hailing from a different era, they are at once familiar and foreign.
Today is Ernest Hemingway’s birthday, and as we are wont to do when given such an excuse, we spelunked into the depths of an auction house’s collection of rare books (in this case, mostly Heritage Auctions) to study Hemingway’s.
Here is a medley of his first editions (and one second edition). Check them out—and hey, if you’ve got the pocketbook, click through to take one home. In the meantime, we’ll live vicariously through you and these digital covers.
