The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 2, 1923-1925

by Ernest Hemingway, Sandra Spanier (Editor), Albert J. DeFazio III (Editor), Robert W. Trogdon (Editor)

Overview

The Letters of Ernest Hemingway document the life and creative development of a gifted artist and legendary personality whose work would both reflect and transform his times. Volume 2 (1923-1925) illuminates Hemingway's literary apprenticeship in the legendary milieu of expatriate Paris in the 1920s. We witness the development of his friendships with the likes of Sylvia Beach, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Dos Passos. Striving to "make it new," he emerges from the tutelage of Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein to forge a new style, gaining recognition as one of the most formidable talents of his generation. In this period, Hemingway publishes his first three books, including In Our Time (1925), and discovers a lifelong passion for Spain and the bullfight, quickly transforming his experiences into fiction as The Sun Also Rises (1926). The volume features many previously unpublished letters and a humorous sketch that was rejected by Vanity Fair.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521897341
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2013
Series:	The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway , #2
Pages:	604
Sales rank:	732,029
Product dimensions:	6.56(w) x 9.24(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Sandra Spanier, Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, is General Editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway and co-editor of its first volume. Some of her publications include Kay Boyle: Artist and Activist (1986) and Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles' rediscovered play Love Goes to Press (1995, revised edition, 2010). Her essays on Hemingway have appeared most recently in Ernest Hemingway in Context (2012) and she serves on the editorial board of The Hemingway Review.

Albert J. DeFazio, III, Term Professor at George Mason University, is author of Literary Masterpieces: The Sun Also Rises (2000), editor of Dear Papa...Dear Hotch: The Ernest Hemingway/A. E. Hotchner Correspondence (2005) and Associate Editor of Volume 1 of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway. He has contributed bibliographies in The Hemingway Review, served on its editorial board, and edits The Hemingway Newsletter.

Robert W. Trogdon is Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Kent State University. He is co-editor, with Sandra Spanier, of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 1. He is author of The Lousy Racket: Hemingway, Scribners and the Business of Literature (2007) and editor of Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference (2002). He is a member of the board of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society.

Date of Birth:

July 21, 1899

Date of Death:

July 2, 1961

Place of Birth:

Oak Park, Illinois

Place of Death:

Ketchum, Idaho

Table of Contents

General editor's preface Sandra Spanier; Acknowledgments; Note on the text; Abbreviations and short titles; Introduction to the volume J. Gerald Kennedy; Chronology; Maps; The letters, 1923–1925; Roster of correspondents; Calendar of letters; Index of recipients; General index.

Editorial Reviews

08/26/2013
This second of 17 projected volumes of Hemingway’s correspondence collects 242 letters, telegrams, and postcards in which the globetrotting young author waxes exuberantly on such topics as bullfighting, nostalgia, the grind of writing copy for the Toronto Star, the creative process, the difficulties of making a career as a fiction writer, and the joys of writing fiction (“Have just finished a swell story of 100 pages and feel as though I would like the nurse to lift it up and tell me if it’s a boy or a girl”). Many letters are brief and inconsequential, but some of these contain gems—for instance, a 1924 letter to Vanity Fair includes “My Life in the Bull Ring with Donald Ogden Stewart,” a previously unpublished jeu d’esprit that the magazine rejected. In August 1925, he writes to Jane Heap that he’s completing “a hell of a fine novel. Written very simply and full of things happening and people and places and exciting as hell”—a reference to The Sun Also Rises, published the following year. Hemingway’s correspondents include F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Maxwell Perkins, Sherwood Anderson, and John Dos Passos. This expertly edited and annotated volume will be devoured by fans eager to learn how the literary titan came into his own. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Never is Hemingway more fascinating or in flux than in these letters from his Paris years, that dark and dazzling confluence of literary ascendancy and personal maelstrom. Bravo to Sandra Spanier for giving us this dazzling gem of literary scholarship, and the young Hemingway in his own words—unvarnished, wickedly funny, mercilessly human."
--Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

From the Publisher

★ 09/01/2013
This second installment of Hemingway's collected letters, now projected to run to 17 volumes, contains 242 letters, two-thirds of which are previously unpublished. Correspondents include family, youthful companions, and literary luminaries such as Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Robert McAlmon. The letters document the significant role Hemingway (1889–1961) played in promoting the work of his friends in literary journals such as Transition and This Quarter, as well as his stylistic development leading to the publication of In Our Time (1925) and The Sun Also Rises (1926). Hemingway's letter-writing style is generally playful. Overall, the letters provide a portrait of the author as son, husband, father, and friend—an ordinary American embodying both the values and prejudices of his time. Included are a useful introduction, detailed notes, and a 15-page chronology for the years covered. VERDICT Hemingway did not want his letters published, but this carefully researched scholarly edition does them justice. Carlos Baker's 1981 edition of Hemingway's Selected Letters may suffice for casual readers; however, devotees will find this and future volumes indispensable.—William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY

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