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The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 4, 1929–1931
The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 4, spanning April 1929 through 1931, featuring many previously unpublished letters, records the establishment of Ernest Hemingway as an author of international renown following the publication of A Farewell to Arms. Breaking new artistic ground in 1930, Hemingway embarks upon his first and greatest non-fiction work, his treatise on bullfighting, Death in the Afternoon. Hemingway, now a professional writer, demonstrates a growing awareness of the literary marketplace, successfully negotiating with publishers and agents and responding to fan mail. In private we see Hemingway's generosity as he provides for his family, offers support to friends and colleagues, orchestrates fishing and hunting expeditions, and sees the birth of his third son. Despite suffering injuries to his writing arm in a car accident in November 1930, Hemingway writes and dictates an avalanche of letters that record in colorful and eloquent prose the eventful life and achievements of an enormous personality.
822 pages, Hardcover
Published November 16, 2017
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About the author
Ernest Hemingway
2,280 books32.6k followersErnest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 4, 2018
Volume 4 continues the same meticulousness of the first three. Covering the period from c. 7 April 1929 thru 26 December 1931, it contains 430 items of correspondence directed to 125 recipients.
The initial literary concerns in the volume are with the completion and final revisions of FTA. The ending concerns are with his progress with the manuscript of DIA. Intermingled with those literary concerns are Hemingway’s travels from Key West to the mountains of Montana and Wyoming and his 4 trips to Europe.
In Key West, he and his friends deep-sea fish, taking extended trips to the Dry Tortugas. In the American West he hunts game. It is both of these activities—typically adjuncts to his routine writing-- that will occupy much of his leisure time for the rest of his life.
He sets up a trust fund for his widowed mother and his siblings; fusses over the reporting of his boxing match with Morley Callaghan; discusses and buys guns in preparation for his future African safari; recovers from a car accident in which he breaks his upper arm; attends to the birth of his third son, Gregory, in Kansas City; reflects on the political situation in Spain on the build-up to the Spanish Civil War that will begin in 1936; begins to drop old friends and add new ones.
For me, at least, the letters in this volume, taken as a whole, are the least interesting of those published to date. Hence the 4-star rating.
The initial literary concerns in the volume are with the completion and final revisions of FTA. The ending concerns are with his progress with the manuscript of DIA. Intermingled with those literary concerns are Hemingway’s travels from Key West to the mountains of Montana and Wyoming and his 4 trips to Europe.
In Key West, he and his friends deep-sea fish, taking extended trips to the Dry Tortugas. In the American West he hunts game. It is both of these activities—typically adjuncts to his routine writing-- that will occupy much of his leisure time for the rest of his life.
He sets up a trust fund for his widowed mother and his siblings; fusses over the reporting of his boxing match with Morley Callaghan; discusses and buys guns in preparation for his future African safari; recovers from a car accident in which he breaks his upper arm; attends to the birth of his third son, Gregory, in Kansas City; reflects on the political situation in Spain on the build-up to the Spanish Civil War that will begin in 1936; begins to drop old friends and add new ones.
For me, at least, the letters in this volume, taken as a whole, are the least interesting of those published to date. Hence the 4-star rating.
December 4, 2017
I would like to thank Cambridge University Press for my copy of this fantastic collection of letters. I am officially obsessed with Hemingway, and I blame them ;) Really though, I will be purchasing the other volumes in this series. I love history and literature, and this book is a truly fascinating look into one of the biggest names in literature. A must-have for any Hemingway wonk.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews