“I AM NOT DEPRESSED AT THE PROSPECT OF BEING FORGOTTEN IF I DO NOT CEASE TO WRITE ABOUT ‘LOST GENERATIONS AND BULLS”: SPLENDID, VERY LENGTHY—AND HIGHLY ENRAGED—1932 AUTOGRAPH LETTER REGARDING THE SUN ALSO RISES, FAULKNER, DOS PASSOS, GERTRUDE STEIN AND MORE, SIGNED BY HEMINGWAY

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Autograph letter signed. Cooke, Montana, August 9, [1932]. Four pages on two legal-sized sheets written in ink on both rectos and versos, original stamped envelope hand-addressed by Hemingway.

Scathing original four-page autograph letter to bookseller and private-press publisher Paul Romaine of the Casanova Press in Milwaukee, refuting, for a second time, the recipient’s suggestion that Hemingway’s work might benefit from a political stance and offering blunt evaluations of other major authors—Faulkner, Dos Passos and Stein among them—with penciled postscript in margin of the last page.

Of her father-in-law, Valerie Hemingway has recalled, “Mostly his temper was good but, with reason, he could lose it in a flash.” This remarkable letter, readers can easily imagine, captures one such heated moment. Milwaukee bookseller Paul Romaine—“whom Hemingway allowed, in a moment of weakness, to reprint in a limited collector’s edition an early poem [Salmagundi]” (Reynolds, Hemingway: The 1930s, 98)—“thought he could discern a leftward swing in American writing” during the early 1930s, and urged Hemingway “to stop writing about Lost Generations and bulls” lest he be forgotten (Baker, 226; see also Leff, 162). In response to Romaine’s second such suggestion, Hemingway penned this enraged reply. The letter reads, in part: “If you had received many letters from me you would not wonder at the heat of the one you write of. I was angry at you, a parasite or camp follower of the arts, suggesting smugly to me that you hoped (I forget the words exactly) that I was being influenced by or cognizant of such and such a political or economic movement. […] I will not outline my political beliefs to you […] since I could be jailed for them […] but if they are not much further left than yours which sound like a sentimental socialism I will move them further over. As for my childish unwillingness to continue correspondence— let me tell you something. Publishers of limited editions make a practice of selling the personal letters of writers. I know this from experience; dirty experience […] Am not terrified by the injection of personalities— nor depressed at the prospect of being forgotten if I do not cease to write about ‘Lost generations and bulls.’ I wrote, in six weeks, one book [The Sun Also Rises] about a few drunks and to show the superiority of the earlier Hebrew writers over the later quoted Ecclesiastes versus G. Stein. This was some seven years ago. Since then have not been occupied with this so-called (but not by me) lost generation. About bulls— for ten years or so bull fighting was my recreation and amusement […] I wrote a book [Death in the Afternoon, which would be published that September 23rd] to clear them up and keep them— also something about Spain which I know a little about from having lived there. I have to live sometime and I have quite a few things to write about and my mind is not occupied with lost generations and bulls […] “Neither Wilder nor Dos Passos are ‘good writers.’ Wilder is a very minor writer who knows his limitations and was over inflated by critics and as quickly over de-flated. Dos Passos is often an excellent writer and has been improving in every way with each book he writes […] Zola and Hugo were both lousy writers— but Hugo was a grand old man… Flaubert is a great writer but he only wrote one great book— Bovary […] Stendhal was a great writer with one good book, Le Rouge et le Noir— some fine parts of La Chartreuse de Parme (wonderful) but much of it tripe and the rest junk […] I have never received a copy of the book of Faulkner’s early crap. Ernest Hemingway.” In his postscript Hemingway reports: “My wife, just now, says she thinks the Faulkner pamphlet came to Key West. So you may be an honest man […] in which case accept the necessary apologies on sending the book.” This extraordinary letter confirms Hemingway’s disdain for politics of any stripe: “Having never voted, never supported a political party and having never believed any politician since his postwar education as a reporter in Europe, Hemingway was, if anything, a passive anarchist who wanted all government, except tribal, out of his life” (Reynolds, 99). See Baker, Selected Letters, 36566; Mellow, 477.

Very minor fold-tears and a tiny fold-hole, about-fine. Envelope opened at edge. An exceptional and significant Hemingway letter, offering unparalleled insight into this iconic American author.