?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 7,000 - $ 10,000
COMPLAINS OF CRASH & THAT HE "HAD TO SHOOT MY FIRST LION WITH A BORROWED" GUN HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. Small archive of 7 items, each Signed "Ernie," "EH," or Ernest M. Hemingway," to or concerning his attorney Alfred Rice, including 4 ALsS, two ANsS and a Typed DS. The letters, complaining of having been billed for rifles and ammunition of the wrong kind, hoping for a positive diagnosis concerning internal injuries [sustained from two plane crashes in January], discussing his finances including taxes and inheritance from his mother's estate, complaining of Rice's mishandling of money and disregard of instructions, discussing donation of his manuscripts to Houghton Library, discussing contract terms [for film adaptation of Old Man and the Sea (1958)], and complaining of having to work when he ought to be resting. The notes, written in the blank spaces of the typed letters from Rice to him; the first, concerning a proposal from publisher Ziff-Davis, German publisher rights to "Over the Trees" [Across the River and Into the Trees (1950)?], and permission to quote A Farewell to Arms (1929); the second, declining to give The New York Review [short-lived magazine edited by Peter McCurtin and William Atkins] permission to reprint "The Tradesman's Return" (1936). The document, granting power of attorney to Rice for motion picture rights to Hemingway's short story "My Old Man" (1923) [adapted into 1950 film, Under My Skin], with notary's signature and attached certification by Vice Consul in Italy. Together 15 pages, folio or 4to or 8vo, most on onionskin paper, most on stationery, most on rectos of separate sheets; two holes and loss of one page's left margin in 1956 letter caused by Hemingway's excision of expletives, folds. Vp, 1953-58
17 April 1954 ["17/4/53"]: "Roberto [Herrera] wrote me he had a letter from either Abercrombie and Fitch or a collection agency saying they would go to law if my bill with them was not paid. . . . I have never received any bill of any sort from A and F . . . . They sent me two .22 rifles of a type I did not order, several hundred rounds of ammo of another type than I had ordered; sent my guns . . . so that I did not have my Springfield .30-06 for more than a month and had to shoot my first lion with a borrowed .256 Mannlicher which was so old it would come apart in my hands and had to be held together with tape . . . . In exporting it they valued my .577 Westley Richards at $2,000 and I had to pay full duty on that sum. . . . "I am an honorary member of the White Hunters Association and an Honorary Game Warden of Kenya and on both of these organizations the impression made by their carelessness was not a good one. ". . . The dope is now that I have to go into hospital Monday at Genova. Hope check up will be ok, and will get a good plan on handling the internal injuries. I asked . . . Hotch [A.E. Hotchner] to give you the word on them and the burns. Couldn't write letters much on acc't of right arm which was burned to the bone 3rd degree and it would cramp up on me (still does a little but all burns ok). But fingers burned and left hand 3rd degree too, so couldn't type. The trouble is inside where right kidney was ruptured and liver and spleen injured. . . . ". . . Had receipts and all sorts of stuff burn. Don't know whether air company will pay for losses. . . . Mary had a big shock and her memory not too hot yet and it will take quite a time to sort things out. Tell the Dept. that I am more valuable to them alive than dead and at present am trying [to] stay alive and get fit to produce. . . . "I am weak from so much internal bleeding. . . ." 11 December 1956: ". . . I will write Caralt [Spanish publisher Luis de Caralt?] that you had no authority to contract with him for Death In the Afternoon as I asked you to do in the beginning since I had expressly forbidden you twice to make any contract for this book. I will try to explain to him the situation. I will not put you in a bad light nor impair your authority. But when I give a specific instruction twice I should not be expected to take responsibility for its being dis-obeyed. . . . ". . . I am having the original MSS of A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls delivered to Mr. Jackson at the Houghton Library to be appraised. . . . I can donate 30% of this sum to the Library of Harvard University and it will be deductible from the value of the MSS which will remain on deposit and from which further gifts can be made. . . . To make any sense, the clause . . . should read: '. . . [T]he undersigned assures you that the additional time will be used to photograph on location live marlin of size over seven hundred pounds both jumping and underwater and to photograph live . . . birds and marine life mentioned in The Old Man and the Sea . . . .' ". . . It is what Leland Hayward [producer of 1958 film adaptation of Old Man and the Sea] promised if an extension was given. . . ." 12 December 1956 [written as postscript to letter of previous day]: "I hope you will not get angry at some of the points I have had to make in this letter. I've cut out the bad words and anything I thought on re-reading was unjust. . . . "Mary's mother got belligerent and has to go to hospital and will take all money my securities bring in. So will have to write whether I can or not or whether they tell me to rest or not."
