Rare Hemingway Letter Found

Add another Ernest Hemingway letter to the mix that has not been previously published. The letter, written in 1926, was recently found by Jennifer Towes of the manuscripts section of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. The letter shows a generous side of Hemingway who offers to go 50/50 on helping to publish writer Morley Callaghan’s novella. Both men had first met as reporters at the Star in 1923. Dr. Sandra Spanier of Penn State had confirmed that this particular letter had never been published or cited in any other Hemingway biographies.

15 New Hemingway Letters Acquired

A nice article by Martine Powers appeared in our Boston Globe on Thursday March 29th titled Hemingway Letters offer glimpses of author’s soft side. The Hemingway Museum at the JFK Library recently acquired 15 new Ernest Hemingway Letters – sounds like another great reason to get back for a visit! Susan Wrynn, curator of the EH collection actually went to Italy to personally pick up the letters. One of the letters was written to  Gianfranco Ivancich who of course is the brother of Adriana who EH had a crush on and was used in his work. Maybe we shall see some of these letter’s in one of the upcoming volumes of Letters by Sandra Spanier? See press release from JFK Library here.

Video: The Letters of Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway Forum Back at JFK Library

Hemingway’s Letters: From Childhood to Paris

Sunday, December 11, 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.   Join us for a discussion of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 1, 1907-1922 with Sandy Spanier, the book’s editor, and novelist Ward Just. Scott Simon, host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday, will moderate, and the actor, Corey Stoll, who played Hemingway in Woody Allen’s recent Midnight in Paris, will read selections.

A free screening of Midnight in Paris will be shown following the forum. Running time is 94 minutes.

Hemingway in the News

Here are a few recent articles on Ernest Hemingway that I have come across:

Are Criticisms of Hemingway Unfair? (Panel Discussion) – Idaho Mountain Express

The Finest Life You Ever Saw by James Salter (New York Book Review)

Tender Buttons to Push by Robert Fulford, National Post (article on G. Stein)

The Man who Would be Papa by Robert Fulford, National Post

Hemingway Letters in Vanity Fair

A. Scott Berg has a story on Ernest Hemingway’s letters that were found at his estate in Cuba in the October issue of Vanity Fair. Click here to read. The article is accompanied by photos of some of the letters in the form of a slide show.

New and Used Hemingway

This week I picked up used copies of Jackson Benson’s, The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays (Duke University Press, 1975), Earl Rovit and one of my favorites Gerry Brenner - Ernest Hemingway (Twayne Publishers, 1986) and Ernest Hemingway: A Collection of Criticism by Arthur Waldhorn (McGraw-Hill, 1973).

New books on Hemingway that are coming out in Sept/Oct of this year include:

Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934-1961 by Paul Hendrickson. Due date: September 20, 2011.

The Letter of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 1, 1907-1922 Editors, Sandra Spanier and Robert Trogdon. Due date: October 31, 2011.

Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway’s First Wife by Gioia Diliberto. Due date: September 6, 2011.

The Only Thing That Counts

Hemingway and Perkins after a day of fishing

For insight into the life of Ernest Hemingway look no further than some of the great books of letters that have been published over the years. One such book, The Only Thing That Counts, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli is a window into the relationship between Hemingway and his editor Maxwell Perkins (1925-1947). The relationship between the two started in 1924 when Hemingway’s friend and writer F. Scott Fitzgerald told Perkins about a great young writer with a “brilliant future. 

“the utterly real thing in writing is the only thing that counts” – Maxwell Perkins to EH, 1935. 

Here are a few lines from Perkins to Hemingway regarding The Sun Also Rises dated May 18th 1926. “The Sun Also Rises” seems to me a most extraordinary performance. No one could conceive of a  book with more life in it. The book as a work of art seems to me astonishing, and the more so because it involves such an extraordinary range of experience and emotion, all brought together in the most skillful manner – the subtle ways of which are beautifully concealed – to form a complete design. I could not express my admiration too strongly. (note: these few sentences were taken from the start and end of the letter).

Letter from Hemingway to Ezra Pound

I came across this letter at Yale University Library from Ernest Hemingway to colleague and friend Ezra Pound. The letter was written in 1931 and you can hear the audio version on iTunes. Search for Ernest Hemingway from the iTunes store and 92 items comes up. Look for #9 on that list – it’s Free – under the heading American Letters. Enjoy.