Hemingway mss. III, 1895-1934
Summary Information
Repository
Lilly Library (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Lilly Library
Indiana University
1200 E. Seventh St.
Bloomington, IN 47405-5500
Phone: 812-855-2452
Fax: 812-855-3143
Email: liblilly@indiana.edu
Creator
Hemingway, Ernest,
1899-1961
TitleHemingway mss. III, 1895-1934
Collection No.
LMC 1487
Extent
77 items
Language
Materials are in English.
Abstract
The Hemingway mss. III, 1895-1934,
collection consists of letters written by primarily Ernest Hemingway and his second
wife, Pauline (Pfeiffer) Hemingway, 1895-1951, to the Hemingway family at Oak Park,
Illinois.
Access Restrictions
This collection is open for research.
Biographical Note
Ernest Hemingway was born and raised in Cicero (now Oak Park), Illinois. He began his
writing career as a journalist for the
Kansas City Star
and served as an ambulance driver in World War One, during which he rescued an
Italian soldier while seriously wounded and received the Italian Silver Medal for
Military Valor. In the 1920s he became part of the "Lost Generation" of American
expatriates living in Paris, where he wrote his first novel,
The Sun Also Rises (1926). Other important literary works by Hemingway
include
A Farewell to Arms (1929),
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), the Pulitzer Prize
winning
The Old Man and the Sea (1951), and the
posthumous
A Moveable Feast (1964). Hemingway served as
a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and World War II. In 1954, he won
the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his mastery of the art of narrative...and for the
influence he has exerted on contemporary style." Hemingway died from a
self-inflicted gunshot wound in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961.
Scope and Content Note
The earliest letter is that of his father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, 1871-1928,
physician, addressed to a member of the Agassiz Society while he was on a trip to
Scotland in 1895. The first letter by Ernest Hemingway is a childhood scribble in
crayon with an explanatory note by his mother, Grace Ernestine (Hall) Hemingway.
Letters and cards in 1910 and 1917 refer to vacations in Nantucket, Massachusetts,
and work experience on the farm in northern Michigan. After a brief stint as a
newspaper reporter on the
Kansas City Star in 1917 and 1918, Ernest joined the Red
Cross Ambulance Corps and sailed for Europe. Wounded in Italy (for which he received
a citation and so sketched in a letter of Nov. 11, 1918), he wrote home frequently
of his experiences while recuperating. His letter of July 21, 1918, bears a
self-cartoon of the injured Hemingway. Married to Hadley Richardson in 1921,
Hemingway then spent some time in Paris and Europe with his wife and son John Hadley
Nicanor. While there on May 7, 1924, he wrote to his family about the return of five
copies of
In Our Time by his mother to the publisher.
Divorced in 1927, he married in the same year Pauline Pfeiffer. Pauline continued the family correspondence
writing of the births of her sons, Patrick and Gregory, of travels to Key West, to
Montana (where Ernest was hospitalized following an automobile accident), and on
January 23, 1934, about a safari in Africa. In 1929 and 1930 Hemingway wrote from
Paris and Madrid concerning the family financial situation in Oak Park.
Other correspondents include: Theodore B. Brumback, C.E. Frazer Clark, Jr., Clarence
Edmonds Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway, Pauline (Pfeiffer) Hemingway, Charles H.
Hopkins, Hadley (Richardson) Hemingway Mowrer, Roman (?) Williams.
A photograph of the Hemingway family in January, 1906; a Red Cross leaflet, ca. 1918, reporting the
recuperation of the wounded Hemingway; an
Oak Leaves obituary in 1926 of Hemingway's
grandfather, Anson Tyler Hemingway; and a snapshot of the plaque designating
Windermere (in northern Michigan) as a historical site in 1968, complete the
collection.
Some of the correspondence has been partially published, quoted or
paraphrased in several sources. The letters of Nov. 1 and 11, 1918, have been
translated into Italian and published in
Americani sul Grappa (Lilly D629 .I8 A5) on
pages 211-221.
Related Material
Hemingway mss. I; also located at the Lilly Library, Indiana
University, Bloomington, Indiana
Hemingway mss. II; also located at the Lilly Library, Indiana
University, Bloomington, Indiana
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information
Acquired: 1979
Usage RestrictionsPrior arrangements are not necessary before coming to the Library, however,
patrons from out of town are encouraged to communicate with the Library in
advance of their visits to ascertain availability of materials.
Photocopying permitted only with permission of the Curator of Manuscripts, Lilly
Library.
Preferred Citation
[Item], Hemingway mss. III, Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Processing InformationProcessed by Staff.
Completed in 2013
Box 1
Hemingway mss. III
Correspondence: 1895-1917
Correspondence: 1918
Correspondence:
1919-1930
Correspondence:
1931-1934
Correspondence:
undated
Printed: Red Cross leaflet, ca. 1918;
Oak Leaves reprint, 1926; photograph of Windemere plaque, 1973
Photograph: Hemingway family, 1906