The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 6, 1934-1936

by Ernest Hemingway, Sandra Spanier (Editor), Verna Kale (Editor), Miriam B. Mandel (Editor)

Overview

The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Volume 6 (June 1934–June 1936) traces the completion and publication of Hemingway's experimental nonfiction book Green Hills of Africa and work on stories including 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber' and 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro.' In more than twenty pieces in Esquire, he relates his hunting and fishing exploits, discusses writing and writers, and becomes more politically vocal, addressing topical concerns. During this period he immerses himself in big game fishing off Key West, Cuba, and Bimini, gathering specimens for scientific study and making record catches, as well as taking on boxing challengers. He maintains longstanding literary friendships, advises and helps aspiring writers and contemporary artists, and makes public his disdain of critics. Volume 6 also features for the first time an Appendix of Earlier Letters (1918–1934) that have come to light since publication of previous volumes. Writing his epistolary autobiography, Hemingway himself reveals the many and sometimes contradictory facets of his wide-ranging genius.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521897389
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/16/2024
Series:	The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway , #6
Pages:	786
Sales rank:	93,598
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.57(d)

About the Author

Sandra Spanier is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University. She is General Editor of The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway and a co-editor of the previous five volumes. Her essays have appeared in Modern Critical Interpretations: A Farewell to Arms (1987), Cambridge's New Essays on A Farewell to Arms (1990), Hemingway and Women: Female Critics and the Female Voice (2002), Ernest Hemingway in Context (2013), and The New Hemingway Studies (2020), and she serves on the editorial board of the Hemingway Review. Her books include Kay Boyle: A Twentieth-Century Life in Letters (2015), Kay Boyle: Artist and Activist (1986), as well as editions of Boyle's Life Being the Best and Other Stories (1988) and Process: A Novel (2001) and Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles's rediscovered 1946 play, Love Goes to Press: A Comedy in Three Acts (1995; revised edition 2010).

Verna Kale is Associate Research Professor in English at the Pennsylvania State University and Associate Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project. She is the author of the critical biography Ernest Hemingway (2016) and editor of Teaching Hemingway and Gender (2016). Her work has appeared in Reading Hemingway's Winner Take Nothing (2021), The New Hemingway Studies (2020), Hemingway's Short Stories: Reflections on Teaching, Reading, and Understanding (2019), Hemingway in Context (2012), Hemingway and the Geography of Memory (2010), the Hemingway Review, and the Journal of Popular Culture.

Miriam B. Mandel is Senior Lecturer (retired) in the Department of English and American Culture of Tel Aviv University. She served as co-editor of the fourth and fifth volumes of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway and as Associate Editor of the first two volumes. Her books include Reading Hemingway: The Facts in the Fictions (1995, reissued 2011), Hemingway's “Death in the Afternoon”: The Complete Annotations (2001), and Hemingway's “The Dangerous Summer”: The Complete Annotations (2008). She is the editor of A Companion to “Death in the Afternoon” (2004, reissued 2009) and Hemingway in Africa (2011, reissued 2016). She has published more than thirty essays in peer-reviewed academic journals and books, is the recipient of seven major grants, and serves on the editorial board of The Hemingway Review.

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

List of plates; List of maps; General editor's introduction; Acknowledgments; Note on the text; Abbreviations and short titles; Introduction to the volume Verna Kale; Chronology; Maps; The letters April 1934–1936; Roster of correspondents; Calendar of letters; Appendix of earlier letters; Index of recipients; General index.

Editorial Reviews

‘This latest installment of the monumental Hemingway Letters project is pure gold. This volume is a fascinating window into a pivotal time in his life, which we all but live alongside him as it unfolds. His fierce passion for fishing, the brewing war in Spain, his complicated relationships with other writers and friends – it all comes vividly alive in his own inimitable words.' Lynn Novick, Co-Director/Producer of PBS Docuseries ‘Hemingway'

‘A revealing and enchanting window into Hemingway’s life and work.’ Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2024-03-14
The latest volume in the canonical writer’s private correspondence.

This installment, which covers two years of Hemingway’s letters in the mid-1930s, offers extraordinary insights into the author’s personal and professional life. The book includes a remarkable range of textual material, including cables, postcards, assorted jottings, and unsent correspondence. We follow Hemingway’s passion for fishing, increasing involvement with leftist politics, and ongoing dedication to the craft of writing. His keen observational skills and rhythmic expressiveness are abundantly apparent in these letters, which often reflect the developing style of his fiction, as well as his experiments in blending fiction and nonfiction in Green Hills of Africa, which he worked on during this period. In her engaging introduction, editor Kale aptly points out that this volume “is a book about fish. It is about other things as well, of course: writing and art, friendship and fatherhood, the ongoing Great Depression and the rising threat of fascism in Europe. And fish—so many fish.” Hemingway’s accounts of fishing adventures—an activity that seems to have formed the spiritual center of his life during this period—are indeed numerous, strikingly detailed, and highly memorable. Another prominent topic involves the commercial dynamics of writing. The author frequently explains how he views his “serious” writing in relation to his journalism for publications such as Esquire, his awareness of the allure and perils of artistic complacency, and his delight and disgust with his burgeoning celebrity. Clearly emerging in this collection, too, is Hemingway’s difficult personality. The letters testify not just to his wit and charisma, but to his vanity, insecurity, and peevishness. The unfiltered revelation of this complexity makes for highly entertaining reading. Though the eclectic material arranged here may seem chaotic, the author’s torrential personality ultimately grants it a satisfying coherence.

A revealing and enchanting window into Hemingway’s life and work.

Kirkus Reviews