Yours, for Probably Always: Martha Gellhorn's Letters of Love and War 1930-1949

by Janet Somerville

Overview

"An engrossing collection that burnishes Gellhorn's reputation as an astute observer, insightful writer, and uniquely brave woman."
— Kirkus starred review)

"This carefully curated collection ... reveals the exciting life of a brilliant woman whose work paved the way for many who followed behind her."
— The Globe and Mail

"What a pleasure reading her correspondence and being reminded of how beautifully she wrote, filled with passion and insight."
— Azar Nafisi

"An essential book ... Janet Somerville has done a marvelous job with marvelous material. Bravo."
— Ward Just

Martha Gellhorn was a strong-willed, self-made, modern woman whose journalism, and life, were widely influential at the time and cleared a path for women who came after her. An ardent anti-fascist, she abhorred "objectivity shit" and wrote about real people doing real things with intelligence and passion. She is most famous, to her enduring exasperation, as Ernest Hemingway's third wife. Long after their divorce, her short tenure as "Mrs. Hemingway" from 1940 to 1945 invariably eclipsed her writing and, consequently, she never received her full due.

Yours, for Probably Always is a curated collection of letters between Gellhorn and the extraordinary personalities that were her correspondents in the most interesting time of her life. Through these letters and the author's contextual narrative, the book covers Gellhorn's life and work, including her time reporting for Harry Hopkins and America's Federal Emergency Relief Administration in the 1930s, her newspaper and magazine reportage during the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Vietnam War, and her relationships with Hemingway and General James M. Gavin late in the war, and her many lovers and affairs.

Gellhorn's life, reportage, fiction and correspondence reveal her passionate advocacy of social justice and her need to tell the stories of "the people who were the sufferers of history." Renewed interest in her life makes this collection, packed with newly discovered letters and pictures, fascinating reading.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780228103950
Publisher:	Firefly Books, Limited
Publication date:	11/10/2022
Edition description:	Now in Paperback
Pages:	528
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Janet Somerville taught literature for 20 years in Toronto. Since 2015, she has been wholly immersed in Martha Gellhorn's life and words, privileged to have ongoing access to Gellhorn's restricted papers in Boston, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword
Prologue

Chapter 1 Nothing Ever Happens
Chapter 2 What Mad Pursuit
Chapter 3 The Trouble I've Seen
Chapter 4 The Spanish Earth
Chapter 5 High Explosive for Everyone
Chapter 6 Death in the Present Tense
Chapter 7 Mr. Ma's Tigers
Chapter 8 Messing about in Boats
Chapter 9 The View from the Ground
Chapter 10 The Face of War
Chapter 11 The Heart of Another
Chapter 12 Love Goes to Press
Chapter 13 Point of No Return
Afterword

Appendix
Timeline
Selected Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Letter Citations
Notes
Photo Credits
Index

Preface

Foreword

Martha Gellhorn was my stepmother. She married my father after she divorced Ernest Hemingway. Martha used to tell me that her inspiration for writing a letter was a heartfelt complaint. That was her dynamo. And when she started to write it, she wrote it to someone, person to person. That way she could focus her complaint in a more direct way that didn't have a scattergun effect and dissipate the emotion in her letters.

She always claimed not to be an intellectual. But there was a contradiction in her here because she loved ideas. She was also very much against what she called 'navel inspection' and yet her heartfelt letters, often included an analysis of a relationship or the person she was writing to.

Martha and I started off on the left foot. I had been airlifted from my very comfortable, seemingly successful life in Princeton, living with an aunt, into an exciting, grey, post-war London, where I didn't seem to fit very well. But then we had a geneticist who came to visit us at our school in Devon and he said that we will go to a party in maybe thirty-five years and not know who is man-made and who isn't. The thought horrified me and I wrote to Martha about it. Instead of saying "get on with your studies," she wrote right back and said "yes, isn't it terrible?" I replied that, as far as I could see, we were living like one-eyed cyclopes and Hollywood was the opiate of the masses. And, in the meantime, the wool was being pulled over our eyes by a few scientists, who were taking the responsibility for the future, and how dare they, and how could they, and so on and so forth. And Martha wrote right back fulsomely and with growing concern.

We then cemented our friendship on anti-nuclear campaigning, she with her magnificent book, The Face of War (cf. the 1986 introduction), which, in my view, is the best thing she ever wrote. I went on anti-nuclear marches, which she supported avidly. This is how we became pen pals and created our friendship through letters.

Her letters delve deeper into her, I think, in some ways better than her presence. She nearly always had a party face and made the best of whatever company she was in and that served to hide away the true Martha. Only in her letters did her feelings emerge ... and with gusto. She opened her heart to you and it was a great compliment and privilege and treat to be in on such a display. It presaged affection and trust and they were an education. I probably got more out of Martha's letters than I did out of my schooling.

Janet Somerville has painstakingly put together a rich collection of Martha's letters for you, the reader, to enjoy. And then there are the replies from her friends. People who helped to shape the 1930s and 1940s. What you are getting in this book is a very articulate account of those fascinating times. Not just the history but the feelings, thoughts and aspirations of those who shaped the history of the time. Janet Somerville has done a wonderful job. I invite you to enjoy the fruits of her labor of love.

Sandy Matthews
Devon, England

Editorial Reviews

[Review of hardcover:] [An] enthralling collection of Gellhorn's correspondence from the 1930s and 1940s.

The New York Review of Books - Fintan O'Toole

[Review of hardcover:] This carefully curated collection of letters between war correspondent, journalist and novelist Gellhorn and her friends, colleagues and lovers — among them Dorothy Parker, Chiang Kai-shek and her husband, Ernest Hemingway — reveals the exciting life of a brilliant woman whose work paved the way for many who followed behind her.

Globe and Mail

Yours, For Probably Always is an essential book, a ticket into the past, a life spent wildly, often bravely, sometimes not so wisely... Janet Somerville has done a marvelous job with marvelous material. Bravo. Martha Gellhorn was courageous and committed in love and in war. What a pleasure reading her correspondence and being reminded of how beautifully she wrote, filled with passion and insight. Yours, for Probably Always is a rich resource about an extraordinary life well-lived. The literary stream-of-consciousness letters, uncensored and intimate, read like a novel. There are dramatic flashpoints, but also revelations of everyday existence that are equally absorbing. The book provides genuine insight about Martha Gellhorn and how real she was. It was a huge job to pull this all together and make it read smoothly when you are covering so much territory and Janet Somerville did that with perfect aplomb. She chose wisely so you see Gellhorn's wit, her charisma, but also her hard work and dedication to mankind. The remarkable Martha Gellhorn leaps from the pages of these vivid, witty, deeply human and humane letters. Through her loving curation and attention, Janet Somerville gives voice to a 20th century literary pioneer, too long in shadow. As much as any woman in the twentieth century, Martha Gellhorn succeeded in her ambition to 'go everywhere and see everything and sometimes write about it.' It is wonderful to have this compendious new collection of letters from and to her, a few newly discovered. Janet Somerville has carefully set each group of correspondence in its historical context and further enriched them with photographs which even longtime Gellhorn admirers will not have seen.

Ward Just

[Review of hardcover:] This is history as it was lived, and shared in intimate and emotional detail, among Gellhorn's lovers, husband, family and friends who were among the most important doers and thinkers of the time. Curated with valuable context by Janet Somerville... It's her own love letter of sorts to a woman she calls "a wonder"... This new offering reminds us how we read history through two prisms: a recollection of the past and a reflection on our own time. So much has changed, and so much is much the same, since our last Martha moment, reason enough to savour a new account... Now we have more of her own words, and those who admired and embraced her, to reflect again on her world and ours.

Observer - Lyse Doucet

[Review of hardcover:] A must-read... Captures an extraordinary period in Gellhorn's life... Yours, for Probably Always offers love letters, family exchanges, reports on daily life and missives about politics and conflict. The book is history, geography, psychology and biography all at once... The book includes letters she exchanged with an amazing cast of characters, including H.G. Wells, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Ernest Hemingway — a riveting fabric that author Somerville stitches together for the reader with a fine thread of biographical detail, bits of conversation, concurrent events and keen observation. Somerville is a magician here, somehow organizing and conveying a mountain of biographical information with brevity and great style.

Toronto Sun - Liz Braun

[Review of hardcover:] A book I guarantee you is going to make waves.

Toronto Star - Deborah Dundas

The remarkable Martha Gellhorn leaps from the pages of these vivid, witty, deeply human and humane letters. Through her loving curation and attention, Janet Somerville gives voice to a 20th century literary pioneer, too long in shadow.

Charles Foran

It was a huge job to pull this all together and make it read smoothly when you are covering so much territory and Janet Somerville did that with perfect aplomb. She chose wisely so you see Gellhorn's wit, her charisma, but also her hard work and dedication to mankind.

Catherine Gildiner

Yours, for Probably Always is a rich resource about an extraordinary life well-lived. The literary stream-of-consciousness letters, uncensored and intimate, read like a novel. There are dramatic flashpoints, but also revelations of everyday existence that are equally absorbing. The book provides genuine insight about Martha Gellhorn and how real she was.

Wayson Choy

07/08/2019

Novelist and war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) may be best known as Ernest Hemingway’s third wife, but that’s a disservice to a fascinating writer in her own right, as revealed in this rich, if occasionally hard-going, assemblage of her correspondence. Spanning the two most intense and productive decades of her life, the letters reveal a colorful, perceptive, compassionate, and, not least, quite opinionated person (of fellow writer Arthur Koestler: “He evidently thinks that he alone has a corner on the Light and the Way”). There is surprisingly little about Gellhorn’s war writings, but the letters do cast new light on her private life outside of her 1940–1945 marriage to Hemingway, including on her two other important romantic relationships during this period, with the French economist and historian Bertrand de Jouvenal and American general James Gavin. The compilation also reveals the depth of her connection to, and insight into, another frequent correspondent, Eleanor Roosevelt, whom she calls, in a 1962 letter to Adlai Stevenson after Roosevelt’s death, “the loneliest human being I ever knew.” A long and somewhat demanding book, with several hundred letters from and to Gellhorn and fewer annotations than readers might appreciate, this compilation nonetheless provides a fitting tribute to a remarkable life and career. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Martha Gellhorn was courageous and committed in love and in war. What a pleasure reading her correspondence and being reminded of how beautifully she wrote, filled with passion and insight. Yours, for Probably Always is a rich resource about an extraordinary life well-lived. The literary stream-of-consciousness letters, uncensored and intimate, read like a novel. There are dramatic flashpoints, but also revelations of everyday existence that are equally absorbing. The book provides genuine insight about Martha Gellhorn and how real she was. It was a huge job to pull this all together and make it read smoothly when you are covering so much territory and Janet Somerville did that with perfect aplomb. She chose wisely so you see Gellhorn's wit, her charisma, but also her hard work and dedication to mankind. The remarkable Martha Gellhorn leaps from the pages of these vivid, witty, deeply human and humane letters. Through her loving curation and attention, Janet Somerville gives voice to a 20th century literary pioneer, too long in shadow. Yours, For Probably Always is an essential book, a ticket into the past, a life spent wildly, often bravely, sometimes not so wisely... Janet Somerville has done a marvelous job with marvelous material. Bravo.

Azar Nafisi

As much as any woman in the twentieth century, Martha Gellhorn succeeded in her ambition to 'go everywhere and see everything and sometimes write about it.' It is wonderful to have this compendious new collection of letters from and to her, a few newly discovered. Janet Somerville has carefully set each group of correspondence in its historical context and further enriched them with photographs which even longtime Gellhorn admirers will not have seen.

Adam Hochschild

The letters of the intrepid and passionate war correspondent, Martha Gellhorn — collected by Janet Somerville in Yours, For Probably Always — written during the Spanish Civil War and WWII — have an immediacy and fluency that's very up close and appealing.

Elle.com - Margaret Atwood

You don't need to be familiar with Gellhorn's other writing in order to enjoy her letters; this collection simply fuels the desire to seek out and read all of her work. Her correspondents and Somerville speak so movingly about Gellhorn's reporting that the reader aches to experience these pieces first-hand, and reading how Gellhorn herself describes her fiction-writing process prompts a yearning to track down the final product.... It is important that Gellhorn take her place as a trailblazing journalist and author who made the world better for having written about what she saw.

Quill and Quire

★ 2019-07-08
Loneliness, love, and a rebellious spirit are revealed through a writer's intimate letters.

Somerville makes an impressive book debut with a life of novelist, journalist, and intrepid war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (1908-1998), told through a captivating selection of her letters to friends, family, husbands, and lovers. The volume is enriched by Somerville's biographical narrative and her decision to include responses of many recipients and, in some cases, letters between individuals who were especially significant in Gellhorn's life: letters, for example, between Gellhorn's second husband, Ernest Hemingway, and her mother, Edna Gellhorn. Edna was her daughter's polestar and champion: "I love you best of anybody," Gellhorn wrote to her before she went off to report in Vietnam. "I'll love you as long as I live, and admire you wholeheartedly out of the whole world." Gellhorn loved Eleanor Roosevelt, too, whom she counted as a friend and confidante. "Dearest Mrs. R.," Gellhorn wrote, was "an absolutely unfrightened selfless woman whose heart never went wrong." To Gellhorn's impassioned raging against injustice, oppression, and the horror of war, Roosevelt was unfailingly sympathetic and wise but also calmly forthright about Americans' reluctance "to do much in the way of sacrificing to help the people who are suffering in other lands." By the time Gellhorn married Hemingway in 1940, both were already famous, and the marriage made news. But despite playful, loving letters to her "Beloved Bug," she came to find Hemingway moody and volatile; "a man must be a very great genius to make up for being such a loathsome human being," she wrote to her mother when she decided to divorce him. Although she had many affairs and countless friends, she confessed that her abiding loneliness could not "be blotted out by anyone else; my loneliness is my own cherished possession and probably my only one."

An engrossing collection that burnishes Gellhorn's reputation as an astute observer, insightful writer, and uniquely brave woman.

Kirkus Reviews