Winner Take Nothing, Ernest Hemingway. First Edition, 1933. Peter Harrington Rare Books

Winner Take Nothing, Ernest Hemingway. First Edition, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933

First edition, first printing, presentation copy to his third wife Martha Gellhorn, inscribed by Hemingway in pencil on the front free endpaper “To /M. Gellhorn my old Professor in aesthetics from E. Hemingstein” and further inscribed by him “PS 1939 I love you EH”. The leaf is also blindstamped with Martha Gellhorn’s London address. The book was presumably given by Hemingway to Martha Gellhorn around the time of their first meeting in Florida towards to end of 1936 and inscribed for the second time by Hemingway when in 1939 they moved together to Cuba, where they married on 22 November 1940.

[johnburman]

Was it not a reference to Gertrude Stein who was responsible for development of his terse style of writing. She was central to the literary scene in Paris.