Advance review copy that Hemingway requested to be sent to writer Robert L. Wolf, who moved in the same social circles. Perhaps even more interesting than Hemingway’s opinion of Wolf as “stupid” and “horrid” was his explicit fondness for Wolf’s wife, writer Genevieve Taggard, who read this review copy, corresponded with Hemingway about it, and claimed it as her own.
Publisher and Year: New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926
Edition: Advance review copy of the first edition, with the title page dated 1926 and Scribner’s “Compliments of the Author” card affixed to the front pastedown. Though published on 28 May in a run of just 1,250 copies, this copy was sent more than eight days prior [2]. The present copy is one of the first 500 that had been bound by 17 May [1]. Lacking the dust jacket. (Hanneman A4a; Grissom A.4.1.a)
Condition and Description: Octavo, 7.5” x 5”, publisher’s greenish-black cloth stamped in orange-red, 143 pp. Cloth mildly rubbed, scratched, and shelf-worn. Bump to upper-rear board. Binding sound, though the gutter at the title page is slightly strained and there are a few instances of over-opening in the text. Tear to the inner margin of pp. 9–16. A printed Scribner’s card reading “With the Compliments of the Author” is mounted to the front pastedown and Genevieve Taggard’s bookplate is present on the front free endpaper.
Provenance: Writers Robert L. Wolf (1895–1970) and Genevieve Taggard (1894–1948). On 8 April 1926, seven weeks before publication, Hemingway mailed his editor, Maxwell Perkins, a list of individuals he wanted to receive advance copies of The Torrents of Spring [2]. The list included “Robert Woolf [sic]” with an address for Wolf’s shared apartment with Taggard in New York. Alongside this list, Hemingway comments that Wolf is “stupid but well-meaning.” Presumably, Wolf’s inclusion owed to his positive review of In Our Time, in which he stated that Hemingway had “the promise of genius” [3]. Wolf never returned the favor of the free book by reviewing The Torrents of Spring.
Eight days before publication, Taggard wrote to Hemingway: “Torrents of Spring came for Bob – he’s away in the country – I opened it and read it” [2]. She praised the book, a satire of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter, as “an epitaph” for the style of writing that Hemingway was mocking and added: “You’ve cut the head off the dragon.” Hemingway wrote back to Taggard on 7 August, thanking her for sending him her new book, Words for the Chisel, which he reported reading three times and called “a fine book.” He added, “You know all about how good your poetry is so it would be silly and impertinent for me to try and tell you” [2].
Hemingway’s opinion of Wolf became harsh after their social circles overlapped in Paris from 1926 to 1928 [4, 5]. Abroad, Wolf struggled with alcoholism and suffered worsening mental health issues that would culminate in his lifelong institutionalization for paranoid schizophrenia by 1929 [5]. Years later, Hemingway told his cousin, Ruth Lowry, that Wolf was “one of the most horrid citizens I have ever known” and Taggard “very lovely looking and a pretty good poet” [4].
We can locate just one other copy bearing a “Compliments of the Author” card in the auction record, likewise belonging to a reviewer specifically named by Hemingway [6]. Other review copies are known, but with generic publisher’s review slips.
Notes:
1. Scribner production ledgers, Princeton University
2. Hemingway’s letters with Perkins and his 7 Aug. 1926 letter to Taggard appear in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Vol. 3 (2015); Taggard’s 20 May letter is at the JFK Library
3. Wolf reviewed In Our Time in the New York Herald Tribune, 14 Feb. 1926
4. Hemingway’s comments appear in a copy of Taggard’s The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson that he inscribed to Lowry. Sold by Freeman’s on 8 May 2025, Lot 50.
5. Taggard and Wolf’s papers, and related biographical information, are at the NYPL
6. Parke-Benet, 11 Apr. 1967, Lot 120, indexed by RBH
Inventory ID: 840 - 190 - 230
Advance review copy that Hemingway requested to be sent to writer Robert L. Wolf, who moved in the same social circles. Perhaps even more interesting than Hemingway’s opinion of Wolf as “stupid” and “horrid” was his explicit fondness for Wolf’s wife, writer Genevieve Taggard, who read this review copy, corresponded with Hemingway about it, and claimed it as her own.
Publisher and Year: New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926
Edition: Advance review copy of the first edition, with the title page dated 1926 and Scribner’s “Compliments of the Author” card affixed to the front pastedown. Though published on 28 May in a run of just 1,250 copies, this copy was sent more than eight days prior [2]. The present copy is one of the first 500 that had been bound by 17 May [1]. Lacking the dust jacket. (Hanneman A4a; Grissom A.4.1.a)
Condition and Description: Octavo, 7.5” x 5”, publisher’s greenish-black cloth stamped in orange-red, 143 pp. Cloth mildly rubbed, scratched, and shelf-worn. Bump to upper-rear board. Binding sound, though the gutter at the title page is slightly strained and there are a few instances of over-opening in the text. Tear to the inner margin of pp. 9–16. A printed Scribner’s card reading “With the Compliments of the Author” is mounted to the front pastedown and Genevieve Taggard’s bookplate is present on the front free endpaper.
Provenance: Writers Robert L. Wolf (1895–1970) and Genevieve Taggard (1894–1948). On 8 April 1926, seven weeks before publication, Hemingway mailed his editor, Maxwell Perkins, a list of individuals he wanted to receive advance copies of The Torrents of Spring [2]. The list included “Robert Woolf [sic]” with an address for Wolf’s shared apartment with Taggard in New York. Alongside this list, Hemingway comments that Wolf is “stupid but well-meaning.” Presumably, Wolf’s inclusion owed to his positive review of In Our Time, in which he stated that Hemingway had “the promise of genius” [3]. Wolf never returned the favor of the free book by reviewing The Torrents of Spring.
Eight days before publication, Taggard wrote to Hemingway: “Torrents of Spring came for Bob – he’s away in the country – I opened it and read it” [2]. She praised the book, a satire of Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter, as “an epitaph” for the style of writing that Hemingway was mocking and added: “You’ve cut the head off the dragon.” Hemingway wrote back to Taggard on 7 August, thanking her for sending him her new book, Words for the Chisel, which he reported reading three times and called “a fine book.” He added, “You know all about how good your poetry is so it would be silly and impertinent for me to try and tell you” [2].
Hemingway’s opinion of Wolf became harsh after their social circles overlapped in Paris from 1926 to 1928 [4, 5]. Abroad, Wolf struggled with alcoholism and suffered worsening mental health issues that would culminate in his lifelong institutionalization for paranoid schizophrenia by 1929 [5]. Years later, Hemingway told his cousin, Ruth Lowry, that Wolf was “one of the most horrid citizens I have ever known” and Taggard “very lovely looking and a pretty good poet” [4].
We can locate just one other copy bearing a “Compliments of the Author” card in the auction record, likewise belonging to a reviewer specifically named by Hemingway [6]. Other review copies are known, but with generic publisher’s review slips.
Notes:
1. Scribner production ledgers, Princeton University
2. Hemingway’s letters with Perkins and his 7 Aug. 1926 letter to Taggard appear in The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Vol. 3 (2015); Taggard’s 20 May letter is at the JFK Library
3. Wolf reviewed In Our Time in the New York Herald Tribune, 14 Feb. 1926
4. Hemingway’s comments appear in a copy of Taggard’s The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson that he inscribed to Lowry. Sold by Freeman’s on 8 May 2025, Lot 50.
5. Taggard and Wolf’s papers, and related biographical information, are at the NYPL
6. Parke-Benet, 11 Apr. 1967, Lot 120, indexed by RBH
Inventory ID: 840 - 190 - 230
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