Hemingway, Ernest

4 pages (10 1/2 x 8 in.; 267 x 203 mm) in pencil except for the last few lines and signature in ink on the last page, H.G.T.S. T.USA, G6 Station, APO 403 US Army (Villebaudon and Hambye, France), 31 July–1 August [1944], to Mary Welsh [Hemingway], with a few underlinings in ink and red pencil by the recipient; horizontal and vertical folds, small tear from paper clip in upper left corners, few minor nicks and creases at margins.

With: Hemingway, Mary.  Typed letter signed ("Mary H."), 1 page on her embossed letterhead (9 3/4 x 6 7/8 in.; 248 x 175 mm), New York, 21 June 1977, to C. E. Frazer Clark, Jr., president of the Friends of the Detroit Public Library — Catalogue for the Rare Books & Manuscripts Benefit Auction for the Rare Book Room, Detroit Public Library, 28 October 1977, with invoice and newspaper clippings laid in.

Sold in the Friends of the Detroit Public Library Benefit Auction, 28 Ocotober, 1977, lot 36, $3400

Selected Letters (Baker, ed.), pp. 558–561

Condition as described in catalogue entry.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

"Small Friend I will sleep good with you tonight and feel happy as one can be being away from someone as lovely as you."  A wartime love letter and important document of Ernest Hemingway's experience as a war correspondent in battle-scarred France.  At the time of this letter, Hemingway's romance with correspondent Mary Walsh was two months old.  They had met in London, where she was reporting for Time-Life-Fortune.  Hemingway was now in northern France with General Raymond O. Barton's Fourth Infantry Division, covering the fighting for Collier's. 

Hemingway's tightly packed 4-page letter is full of colorful anecdotes.  "We captured a motorcycle with side car and now use it for transport and yest. we captured a big Mercedes Benz staff car.  I have just driven it to the motor pool to get painted … But sometimes we will drive around in the Mercedes.  It is a convertible and had a bullet through the steering column and wiring shot up but we got it going OK and are repairing the steering column.  The Division has killed a great many Germansand we have gotten some excellent cognac from the armoured vehicles.  The general [Barton] is an educated, talented and charming man and a fine soldier.  He was very gay and pleasant just now when he saw me driving in the Mercedes."  Although the countryside is lovely, Hemingway complains twice about the dust.  "We are terribly dirty and we get up before daylight and scrub good all over and all over face hard and sound with soap and washcloth and then with daylight look in pocket mirror and the dust still makes your eyes like a beery whore or ginned debutante who has cried into her mascara."

Several times Hemingway mentions the difficulty of writing in his present situation.  "Have a fine story when I can write it and I will write it.  But should take a rest first.  Will write it and then another on the next phase and back to [room] 612 in the Hotel [Ritz].  I hate to think of those people fouling up our fine room."

In 1977, Mary Hemingway donated this letter to the Friends of the Detroit Public Library for their annual benefit auction.  In her letter to the president of the Friends, she writes, "This is the very first letter I have given to anyone for any purpose, and it must be clearly understood by you and by any purchaser that the one restriction concerning it is that it may not be published, or excerpts from it, in any form by anyone at any time.  It has never been put into type and, being unpublished, has not been copyrighted."  Four years later, Carlos Baker, working from a photocopy at Princeton, published the letter in Selected Letters.  Baker did, however, omit one mildly erotic paragraph in which Hemingway compares lovemaking to pulling the pin from a grenade. 

A long, detailed wartime letter written from France one month after the  Allied invasion of Normandy by "Your Big Friend, E. Hemingway, War Correspondent."