HEMINGWAY ERNEST Autograph Letter Signed to Jane Mason

Sale 2157 - Lot 101

Unsold

Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,000

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. Autograph Letter Signed, to Jane Mason, wife of Pan American Airways Cuba director, G. Grant Mason, discussing his various ailments and fevers, presents he sent her, etc. 4 pages, two 8vo sheets; on The Lincoln Hotel stationery. With the original envelope. Not in Baker and presumably unpublished. Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 9 July 1932

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Additional Details

Hemingway talks about having a high fever upon arrival at Scottsbluff: "Miss Beefie [sister Carol] probably wrote you all the news--and it broke after 104 on 2nd day in Key West--bloody silly business--if I had gone to bed or taken aspirin or any damned thing would have felt bloody good . . ." The lithe and attractive Mason and Hemingway became friends and she often visited the Hemingways in Key West. Biographers speculate that they may have had an affair. It is said that she was the basis for the lead character in the story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and that the story "A Way You'll Never Be" (in Winner Take Nothing) was partly written for her after a deep depression made her jump (or fall) from a second-floor window at the Hemingway's Key West house and she broke her back. She went on to have four more husbands, one of whom was Arnold Gingrich, Editor of Esquire magazine. See previous lot.