Lot 421
Hemingway, Ernest. Typed letter signed ("Ernest"), 13 word holograph postscript 1 page, 11 x 8½ in., Key West, July 25, 1936. To Richard Armstrong, head of the International News Service in Havana, seeking help for To Have and Have Not: "I have something I need for this damned book I'm working on …. What [I] want is contemporary newspaper (eye witness accounts) that I can re-write or steal from what facts I want of these events. The Park massacre, Sacking of Machado palace and hunting of porristas, the Nacional Fight, Atares, the A.B.C. massacre, Funeral of Mella, the last Autentico United front general strike that failed and that the army put down, and an account of the Seigles body finding. Also killing of Guiteras and any Joven Cuba stuff you have….I know this is a hell of a job but if you can get them for me will give you any amount of Mss. first editions items etc. If there are contemporary Cuban accounts send as many as you run into….Have postponed the book of stories because I want to use the One Trip Across, Tradesman's return, and three others that have to do with the same people plus the one I was telling you about Cuba and need this stuff for background. They all link up and I want to have the Cuban stuff in between sort of like the chapters in between the stories in In Our Time. What I need is this stuff I'm writing you for as source material to make up out of. Can you tell or write me the original of the story you told me about the shooting of the father and sons. I want to contrast the events in K.W. and Havana and carry a thing through both of them…." With original envelope type-addressed by Hemingway. Together with carbon copies of two long typed letters from Armstrong to Hemingway, Havana, August 27 and September 12, 1936, 13 pages total, 11 x 8½ in., supplying the detailed Cuban political background material requested--much of which Hemingway used in To Have and Have Not.
Estimated Value $3,000 - 5,000.
Christie's New York, Feb. 21, 1996, lot 137.
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| Realized $3,600 |
