Hemingway, Ernest

Nineteen letters, comprising 14 autograph letters signed (“Ernest,” mostly in ink), 4 typed letters signed (“Ernest,” mostly in pencil), and one typed letter (dictated to and typed by his wife Pauline, with “Ernie” typed), together 44 pages (ranging in size from 6 1/2  x 6 in., 173 x 152 mm, to 13 x 8 1/2  in., 328 x 215 mm), written from Key West, Wyoming, Arkansas, Montana, and various places in Spain and France, circa 23 July 1928 to 29 October 1932, to his close friend Guy Hickok in Paris; one typed letter signed lacking a page, two letters with some red pencil underlining (presumably by Hickok), one letter with slight staining, and a few others with marginal tears, etc., but the series is in very good condition. With the carbon copies of twenty-five typed letters (40 pages, single-spaced) from Hickok to Hemingway, 1929–1938, and a moving unsent autograph letter signed (5 October 1933) from Hickok in which he asks Hemingway for financial assistance.

Jonathan Goodwin (sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Part II, 25 October 1977, lot 422)

Four letters (those of ca. 23 July 1928, 5 December 1930, and 14 and 29 October 1932) are printed in Selected Letters, ed. C. Baker; the others are presumably unpublished

Vintage Hemingway. Addressed variously in this wonderfully entertaining correspondence as “Guy,” “Gros,”, “‘Cock,” and “Copernicus,” Hickok (1988–1951), the Paris correspondent for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, was a great chum of Hemingway’s (they met in 1922 during Hemingway’s first stay in Paris) during the 1920s and ‘30s. “Guy was a genial and seasoned reporter and an enthusiastic gourmet ... and shared Ernest’s interest in boxing, horse racing, [bullfighting], human interest stories and tall tales. Ernest never crossed the Seine without dropping in at the Eagle” (Baker, Ernest Hemingway, p. 87). In March 1927 the two toured Fascist Italy together, a trip which Hemingway wrote up as a group of sketches — in which he and Hickok “play” themselves —  entitled “Che Ti Dice La Patria?” (collected in Men Without Women, 1927). As expected, the letters are warm and chatty. Hemingway speaks of the writing he is doing (A Farewell to Arms is referred to in several letters), tells of his family life (in particular his wife Pauline’s pregnancies and the difficult births of his second and third sons by Caesarian section), talks of his travels through the United States during the Depression, and writes of bullfighting (quite a bit on the American matador Sidney Franklin), hunting and fishing, Spanish politics, and life in Key West, etc. Among authors mentioned are Pound, Fitzgerald, Ford, Dreiser, and Sinclair Lewis.  

 

 [ca. 23 July 1928]: “... Patrick [his second son], weighing nine pounds was born in Kansas City. He looks like Count Salm and we hope will show talent along that line as if he keeps on yelling it is a cinch I won’t be able to write and support him. They finally had to open Pauline up like a picador’s horse to lift out Patrick. It is a different feeling seeing the tripas of a friend rather than those of a horse to whom you have never been introduced ... But everything all right finally and no one dead and Patrick back in Piggott [Arkansas] on a bottle — on several bottles —  His father on page 482 of his monumental opus [A Farewell to Arms] — leaving tomorrow for Wyoming in the Ford —seeing America first. Will find a place where can fish and work and finish the bloody book ...” [ca. 1 September 1928]: “... Don’t ever get the idea you could quit your job and make a living over here just because you could once upon a time — nobody can now — I'd be starving to death if I hadn’t spent all that time stewed in the quarter and ruined my digestion so as to write The Sun Also Rises. Honest toil only gets a man into jail as a vagrant ... This is a punk letter but write Kid — the tourists must be slackening now — after the 10,000 times I’ve defended Ezra [Pound] to get a letter like that ... ” 27 September [1928]: “... As for [F. Scott] Fitzgerald and it [the novel in progress, i.e., A Farewell to Arms]  being called a Lack of Passion that is shit — so far it isn’t called anything — I wrote a long story once about a bullfighter — never published it — called “A Lack of Passion” and suppose Scott, not to be at a loss, took that for a title ... My cousin Ruth Lowry ... was in Tulsa and a news vender tried to sell her The Sun Also Rises which she claimed was an absolutely true book — a friend of Mr. Hemingway’s told her —  He was badly wounded in the war you know. The vender gave her the names of all the people and who do you think the Jew was? [Harold Loeb was the model for Robert Cohn in the novel.] Two guesses. Ford Madox Ford! Our Ford. Ford it seems is the Jew in Papa’s book. Well that makes writing worthwhile. I see by the advertising pages of the August N.R.F. that I’ve a book out and that the other old shark and mutton fish man Jack [Dos] Passos has too . Well we local boys certainly made good. I don’t know good what. Good merde maybe ... I am cockeyed nostalgic for Paris — for Buffalo and the Parc du Prince and the rue de la Gaite and the bloody Luxembourg with the leaves fallen and riding down the Champs Elysees on the bike from the Etoile to the Concorde — and for everything to drink ... but I got to rewrite this book and get a belly full of D’America so I’ll have some stories to write when I come back ...”

 

9 January 1929: “... Am now re-writing my book [A Farewell to Arms] on my typer. Final and last stage before typesetting. Have gotten to chapter twentysome and am going all right. This monumental opus has covered some 6 or seven hundred pages in the longest longhand in the world. It has been in the process since last February. Placed end to end it would guarantee coitus at least interruptus between practically anything you can mention ... would have written sooner kid but for my father shooting himself [on 6 December] and one thing or another including 10,000 miles in two weeks travelling around straightening one bit of horseshit and another up and ever since been working like an old Eagle correspondent just before the boat leaves. So hope you will enjoy my long tale of transalpine fornication including the entire war in Italy and so to BED ... [Scribner’s magazine] are going to serialize [it] ... Should get 15,000 from [them and] will turn a portion of it over to my relatives on the promise that they shall have a little more if they never write me. Nothing if they do.” 14 January [1929]: “... I am on Chapter 34 and working like a bastard to get it (the book) done by the end of January ...” 26 February [ 1929]: “... The book is finally finished and will be serialized in the May number of Scribner’s — to run to Oct. They don’t know what the hell it’s about or they wouldn’t touch it. But it’s a sweet book — I’m damned if it’s not ...”

 

[August 1929]. Hemingway reports from Valencia on Sidney Franklin, the bullfighter from Brooklyn and the most famous American matador: “... I will watch Franklin like a hawk and if he is killed — made a matador or anything else will try and make the earliest Eagle with it. He was a success in Madrid as I wrote you ... he isn’t doing with little bulls ... In Madrid he had two very big ones ...” [May 1930]: “... So I don’t beat my wife don’t I? And what else don’t I do? My God all those lousy literary libellings seem remote when you are going pout in the old boat to [the Dry] Tortugas. It’s the best place I’ve ever been any time anywhere. I’ll tell you about it. Flowers, tamarind trees, guava trees, coconut palms with coconuts till your urine’s clear as gin —  maybe it was gin — we drank enough gin — got  tight last night on absinthe and did knife tricks —  Great success shooting the knife underhand into the piano ...” [ca. June 1930]: “What you trying to do Kid —  Drive down my prices? A merchant  [Captain Louis Henry Cohn of House of Books] paid 160 for a copy of I.O.T. [the Paris 1924 in our time] —  the 3 and 10 [Three Stories & Ten Poems, Paris, 1923] has now brought 150 (wish I had some — you’ll be rich if you didn’t give yours away). The merchant offered me 500 for the S.A.R. [The Sun Also Rises] MSS. not 150 – Old Hickok trying to squash prices [in a newspaper item he wrote] — Merchant offered 500 for “The Killers” MSS. I’ve never sold one ... Book market on the bum. Wish I had a few copies of my 1st editions ... know I could eat for a couple of weeks ... [P.S.] Uncle Gus [Pfeiffer, Pauline’s uncle and the dedicatee of A Farewell to Arms] sent me the clipping about prices — you better write another saying they’ve gone up — (Don’t quote me) — You can sell on the rise!”

 

5 December [1930]: “... It is certainly a filthy business for them to give the Nobel Prize to Mr. [Sinclair] Lewis when they could have given it to Ezra, or to the author of Ulysses. Or is it that the Nobel Prize is supposed to represent the best aspects of Swedish life in America, or anywhere, and that is why they give it to Lewis? Well, I suppose we should be thankful they didn’t give it to Dr. Henry Van Dyke or William Lyon Phelps, both of whom, I’m sure, felt that they were in line for it. Also, it eliminated the Dreiser menace, although of two bad writers, Dreiser certainly deserves it a hell of a lot more than Lewis ... last year when they gave it to Thomas Mann, and when they gave it to Yeats, it made me damned happy ...” This letter, dictated to his wife Pauline was written from a hospital in Billings, Montana, where Hemingway was recuperating from injuries caused by an auto accident. 15 July [ 1931]: “What about Pamplona you big stiff [the just held  feria of San Fermin]?  After I wrote thought would hear from you every day. Finally went with Bumby [his oldest son] and your fellow Brooklinite S. Franklin. Everyone asked for you ... I can’t write for shit nor little green apples — If you know of any odd jobs for one armed ex-service man around Eagle office let me know ...” 30 July [1931]: “Didn’t you go to San Sebastian? [for the bullfights]. It seems Franklin was very good there — carried out on the shoulders again ... Will write something for you if I meet him but not under my name. You see I could sell an interview with him by me for a thousand seeds I think ... But as you know I’ll be damned glad to write anything for you to use yourself ... All the correspondents who were at San Sebastian and saw him praised him greatly ... I am trying to write and can’t a damn bit. We certainly had a fine time at Pamplona ...”

 

14 October [1932]. Writing from Cooke, Montana: “... Going to drive to Key West day after tomorrow — Country is all busted — Wish it were like this when I was a kid – 1/2 schools closed, 200,000 guys on the road like the meat heads in Russia ... Scribners only printed 10,000 copies of this book [his bullfighting opus, Death in the Afternoon, issued 23 September] — thought that would last until Xmas probably and sold them all out 1st day of publication — When it sells 12,500 the advance is covered. That was done 4th day so you will probably see us toward the end of next summer along with the other tourists — if they still have tourists. I tried to make it completely unsaleable and offend everyone but you see — no bloody luck again ... Don’t ever come home thinking U.S.A. truly interesting — it is just the same as ever only now they are all broke where before they were lousy with cash. The scene hasn’t changed, just the condition of the actors — I got 1.00 a word from Cosmopolitan for a story [‘After the Storm’] — last May number — good story too, 2693 words. Think of that in this time of Depression. In a good year should have soaked them about ‘s a palooka I suppose —  well well well this Depression is hell — on the other hand we didn’t participate in the boom ...”   29 October [1932]: “... My damned book [Death in the Afternoon] selling — what do you think of that? I thought of it as a book to end publishers ... You can go out to Hollywood when they start making bull pictures and say ‘No good. You gotta get more bull in it. Like Hemingway.’” 

 

The finest and largest early vintage Hemingway correspondence to appear at auction since this very group was sold in 1977.