Hemingway, Ernest

Autograph letter signed ("E. Miller" — the latter was Hemingway's middle name), 3 pages (10 1/2 x 8 1/8 in; 267 x 207 mm), [New York], "Thursday" [mid-February 1926], to "Gents," his good friend Bill Smith and the writer Harold Loeb (the model for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises), both in Provincetown, Mass.; in dark brown ink on the rectos of three sheets of beige paper, folds and some slight wrinkling.

Maurice F. Neville (Sotheby's, Part I, 13 April 2004, lot 90)

Not in Selected Letters, ed. C. Baker, and presumably unpublished.

Autograph letter signed ("E. Miller" — the latter was Hemingway's middle name), 3 pages (10 1/2 x 8 1/8 in; 267 x 207 mm), [New York], "Thursday" [mid-February 1926], to "Gents," his good friend Bill Smith and the writer Harold Loeb (the model for Robert Cohn in The Sun Also Rises), both in Provincetown, Mass.; in dark brown ink on the rectos of three sheets of beige paper, folds and some slight wrinkling.
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"Scribner's advance me $1500 on The Torrents of Spring ... and The Sun Also Rises."  An exceptional letter, written during Hemingway's eleven day trip to New York, reporting on his formal break with Horace Liveright and his acceptance of an offer from Scribner's. Hemingway arrived in New York from Europe on 9 February; he returned to France on the President Roosevelt, leaving on 20 February. The break with Liveright occurred at a meeting on 10 February; the next morning Hemingway saw Max Perkins and received Scribner's offer, signing the contract the following week on the 17^th. A perpetual calendar indicates that this letter was either written on 11 February (the day of his meeting with Perkins) or on 18 February.

The Hemingway biographer Michael Reynolds mentions this letter, in fact quotes from it, and has it addressed to both Bill Smith and Harold Loeb (Hemingway: The Paris Years, pp. 352–53). Smith, a long-time friend of Hemingway's, and Loeb became friends at the 1925 Pamplona bullfights—which was the basis for the fiesta in The Sun Also Rises—and returned to America together in September 1925 (Loeb's memoir, How It Was, ends at that time).  Ironically, it was Loeb who had introduced Hemingway to the Boni & Liveright firm, which published In Our Time in October 1925. Furthermore, it was at a party in Loeb's apartment in Paris to celebrate this Boni & Liveright contract that Hemingway first met Pauline Pfiffer, who was to become his second wife. And, unbeknownst to Loeb, he was the model for a major character, Robert Cohn, in Hemingway's new novel —The Sun Also Rises—which Scribner's had just accepted for publication. Bill Smith also figured in the novel, being drawn on for the more minor character Bill Gorton.

Hemingway writes (probably in response to a special delivery letter or a telegram): "... I came alone, very, accompanied only by my moral turpitude ... I would flash to Provincetown like a flash but for engagements with publishers, critics, and the like. [Robert] Benchley is flashing Carol-less with me. I will also be accompanied by Mrs./Miss Dorothy Parker. [Both she and Benchley would be on the Roosevelt with Hemingway.]  We will try to get off a quip or so. I'll tell Benchley how you feel about Arlen [probably George Arlen, whose novel The Green Hat was all the rage].  Dos' [John Dos Passos] is in Hollywood. He hasn't written to me, nor to Bob, nor to Hadley, nor to Phil Barry, nor to the Murphys, nor to anybody. Scribner's advance me $1500 on The Torrents of Spring (satire) and The Sun Also Rises (novel). They will pay 15% royalties on everything. No cut on the movies nor dramatics. Have an option on only those 2 books & say that they pleasing me is all the option they want .... They will also buy stories for the magazine [Scribner's Magazine] at from 200 to 250 depending on length ... I got loose from Liveright on account of him turning down the satire [Torrents, which parodied Sherwood Anderson, Liveright's best-selling author]. Scribners say they will back me solidly and loyally no matter how the books turn out financially. So now I don't have to worry, only to work ...

"God I'd love to fortify the optic nerve with a flash at you men on your native heath or heaths ... I have to get back to hang onto the dough I've picked up.  In Our Time seems to have went well with the critics, writers, etc. At least neck and neck with Doodab [Loeb's novel, published by Boni & Liveright around the same time as Hemingway's book]. Us writers ought to stick together. I'm crazy for you to see the funny one [The Torrents of Spring]. It's pretty tough but they're not cutting a word ... So long Boid [Hemingway's nickname for Bill Smith]. A screed to the boat would materially shorten the passage. It's  President Roosevelt sailing Feb 20^th at midnight from Hoboken. Just imagine pouring a man aboard at that hour in Hoboken. Best on the sphere to youse lads."