The Good Lion.

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Illustrated by Francesca Ivancich Scapinelli.

Item Number: 121086

San Francisco: Bradstreet Press, 1998.

First edition in book form of this children’s story, written by Hemingway in 1950 and first published in Epocha Magazine that same year. Octavo, original cloth with gilt titles to the spine and color pictorial onlay with the Lion of Venice to the front panel, illustrated by Francesca Ivancich Scapinelli. One of 250 numbered copies, this is copy number J. In fine condition with a special appreciation by Arrigo Cipriani. Fine in the original acetate dust jacket.

Hemingway wrote The Good Lion in response to a challenge by Venetian love interest Francesca Ivancich Scapinelli who one day confronted him the the notion that he probably couldn't write a children's story for her youngest son with whom Hemingway had become pals. This was enough to send the great writer to his typewriter and The Good Lion was soon published in Epocha Magazine and Francesca was the artist who illustrated it. The following year, Francesca's sister Adriana Ivancich illustrated the story when it appeared in Holiday Magazine (as well as the dust jacket for Across the River and Into the Trees). This edition was the first to be published in book form, with a special appreciation by Arrigo Cipriani, the proprietor of Hemingway's favorite haunt in Venice, Harry's Bar.