Ernest Hemingway is considered one of greatest writers of our generation. He was also an avid reader and book collector over the course his lifetime. His private library contained approximately 9000 volumes. The majority of his books are stored at the Finca Vigia in Cuba and at his former property in Key West, Florida, where he lived from 1931 to 1939. He lived the longest period of his life though in Cuba, on and off for 30-years.
”I think I’ve read all the biographies of Hemingway and I’ve never had a a complete sense of him until I smelled this house and saw some of these things,” Mr. Berg said. ”This is what has been missing on Hemingway, this is the stuff that makes him come alive.” A. Scott Berg, Biographer
Today, a great deal of his digitized collection can be found in Boston at the JFK Library. If you’re interested in what the author read, there is a great collection put together by Michael Reynolds of the books Hemingway owned between 1910-1940. Reynolds of course wrote one of the best 5-volume biographies on Ernest Hemingway to date.
Hemingways private library has always intrigued me for various reasons. I started looking into it again after reading a great 2017 article that I just came across by Emily Temple on the Literary Hub website. Her article talks about private collections of ten famous individuals. I knew Hemingway would make the list but was actually surprised by some others who had massive collections. This included people like Karl Lagerfeld and George Lucas who had private libraries that contained 300,000 and 27,000 volumes respectively.
There are many other private collections that have outdone the rare, Hemingway collection. like historian & bibliomaniac Andrew Dickson White. He spent his life traveling around the world and amassed a huge book collection of more than 34,000 volumes. His unique collection was later donated to help start the Cornell University library in Ithaca, NY.
Additional Reading
Saving Ernest Hemingway’s Cuban Legacy: Preserving Finca Vigía
Bibliomania: the strange history of compulsive book buying
10 Famous Book Hoarders, by Emily Temple
The Life of Ernest Hemingway 