For Whom the Bell Tolls. by HEMINGWAY, Ernest - 1940

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,, 1940. Octavo. Original beige cloth, titles to spine in black and red, and to front board in black, top edge brown. With a supplied dust jacket. Housed in black quarter morocco solander box by the Chelsea Bindery. Gift inscription to front free endpaper. Contents toned, spine cocked and rubbed, cloth somewhat marked, a very good copy, dust jacket creased and rubbed at edges and folds, chips to spine ends and tips, slight loss to head of spine, short closed tear to First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed by the author to the famously eccentric Sir Archibald Clark Kerr on the front free endpaper, "For Sir Archibald Clark Kerr wishing him all good things all his life from his friend Ernest Hemingway Rangoon April 21 - 1941". Kerr was the Australian-born British diplomat who was, at the time of the inscription, British Ambassador to China. On meeting Hemingway, Kerr is reported to have said of him, "Tough? Why, I'm tougher than he is!" Kerr would subsequently go on to become British ambassador to Moscow and then to Washington; he was present at all of the Big Three conferences.