What would it be like to get a love letter from one of America’s greatest writers? Although Hemingway was a diligent correspondent, with thousands of his letters in libraries and private collections around the world, few of his letters to the women in his life have survived.
Contrary to his measured yet precise writing style in his classic works, Ernest Hemingway was a lively and effervescent correspondent in his letters to his family and friends. Brimming with anecdotes and sly humor, Hemingway was an affectionate, witty writer even at an early age—which was especially evident in the many whimsical nicknames he invented.
For those who missed The JFK Library’s December panel discussion of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume I, 1907-1922 featuring editor Sandra Spanier, Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon, novelist Ward Just, and a reading by actor Corey Stoll (who played Hemingway in Woody Allen’s recent Midnight in Paris)
Dateline: Oak Park, Nov 3 Back to where it all began, for Ernest. The Ernest Hemingway Museum in Oak Park, hosted by the Ernest Hemingway Friends of Oak Park, was a great way to end Sandy’s tour.
Working on The Letters of Ernest Hemingway for the past several years has been and continues to be a truly wonderful experience. Since my graduate school days I have loved working with primary documents—manuscripts, letters, etc.—that contain a writer’s initial conceptions of a work or his unmediated thoughts.