Hemingway Letters: Five Rare Letters for Collectors
Typed signed letter to his friend, screenwriter and novelist, Peter Viertel
Highlights of Potter & Potter Auctions' Fine Books and Manuscripts online sale today featuring various letters by Ernest Hemingway include:
* Typed signed letter to his friend, screenwriter for The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea and novelist, Peter Viertel. Finca Vicia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, Nov. 12, 1951. On Hemingway’s personal stationery of brown paper with the address printed at top. It discusses a new Hemingway story, and duck and quail shooting.
* Autograph letter signed to Hemingway's son John (nicknamed 'Bumby'). Finca Vicia, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba [and in Hemingway’s hand: “on board ‘Pilar’ March 19 1956 off Mulatta”.] On Hemingway’s onionskin personal stationary with his Cuban address printed in red at top. With the original onionskin mailing Air Mail envelope on Hemingway’s matching stationery: "wrote this in hurry to get check to you. Work here going good. Hope things clearing up with you."
* Typed letter signed to his brother Leicester (nicknamed “Baron”). Sun Valley Idaho, Nov. 2 [1956]. On plain white paper. “Caught a 549 marlin of Havana this summer and about twenty some others fishing only Sundays.
* Inscribed Christmas card to his mother, with original envelope. Key West, Fl: Dec 20, 1935. “Dear Mother: Merry Christmas from Pauline, Pat, Greg and me. Have you got moved out all right. Glad to hear youre having so much success. We are here for next several months. Give my best to Mr. Thomas Wilson. Much love Ernie."
* Signed typed letter to his friend and typist Jane Armstrong. [N.p., n.d. ca. 1939-1940]. Letter on thin plain brown paper. “Dear Jane ; That certainly was a swell job, pal and there weren’t six errors in the whole business. The guy’s name was Berrendo. My two rs looked like an n. Maybe before it all goes to press you could co-ordinate the moustaches etc. I’ll have to have someone check the Spanish too. I can talk it and understand it and think in it but I can’t spell it; nor English either." The work Hemingway refers to is For Whom the Bell Tolls which was typed up for publication by Armstrong’s daughter, Phyllis Gardner.
