Hemingway, Ernest

Typed letter si🎶gned (“Hemingway” in pencil), to Arnold Gingrich (“Dear Captain Gingritch”), a lengthy criticism of Gertrude Stein

2 pages (280 x 215 mm), [Madrid], 26 September [1933]; single-spaced on two sheets of poor quality tan paper, with a 50-word holog🌌raph postscript in pencil by Hem♓ingway and a one-word penciled correction by him, very slight rubbing at folds.

"Well I liked Stein very much, was always damned nice to her and loyal as hell until kicked out on my backside"

An important letter mostly devoted to Hemingway’s critical view of Stein: “... Haven’t seen the G. Stein book [her The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas had been published 1 September]. Read what was in the Atlantic [Monthly] and so much malice and so many lies made me sore but not very sore. Among other things G. Stein once liked me very much. Toklas was extremely jealous of all Stein’s friends who were not fairies and, I suppose, could be of those who were ... all of Stein’s friends were offered up on the altar of love. The more she liked them the worse roasted they were ... Toklas really very strong woman, wears plenty of the pants in that menage. Has gotten everything she wanted. Could tell you some very funny things. Picasso’s opinion of her. One time when I came in and heard her giving Stein hell [an incident Hemingway later recounted in A Moveable Feast]. Well I liked Stein very much, was always damned nice to her and loyal as hell until kicked out on my backside ... it⛄ gives you a jolt to have someone lie so much and 🃏with such malice. I’m always damned polite to people older than myself and I suppose if they have enough conceit they take that for adoreing [sic] worship and sitting at the feet of.

“Who, she or [Sherwood] Anderson, taught me how to write the Chapter Headings [the vignettes] in In Our Time? From which one did I learn how to write the first and last chapters in A Farewell to Arms? ‘Hills Like White Elephants’? Some other stories and the fiesta part of The Sun Also [Rises]? Which one taught me how to write dialogue? I started the Sun Also in Madrid on my birthday July 21 [1925] and finished it on September 6. Jesus if I only could have seen Gertrude during that time what a fine book it might have been. Then she had the gall to say I talked over parts of it with her. I did, all right, a year after it came out ... G. Stein is a good psychologist though. She knows I don’t get sore at being called any damn thing I am truly. But blow up like a set piece of fireworks if accused of anything I’m not. So she has me frail ... I’ve been cut, sliced, torn...and always was very proud of how quickly I healed and what small importance gave to incidents at time and after ... She says that whenever attempted any ‘manly sports’ was always breaking a bone or being knocked out, taught to shadow box by Sherwood [Anderson]. My God. Old Mother Hubbard herself. That used to be worn out walking to her house. Am yellow (read that in Time now and N. Y. Times yesterday). I’m not yellow the funny thing is. Welꦡl what the hell. She certainly knows how to get me damned sore. It’s damned intelligent malice ...”

This is apparently the first lengthy criticism of Stein in a letter by Hemingway. In later years he would voice similar views in letters to various critics and scholars (Charles Fenton, M𒅌alcolm Cowley, et al).

REFERENCE:

Letters, ed. Spanier, et al., 5:493–95

PROVENANCE:

Arnold Gingrich (recipie♒nt) — Jonathan Goodwin (Sotheby's Parke✤ Bernet, 12 April 1978, part of lot 717) — Maurice F. Neville (Sotheby's New York, 13 April 2004, lot 108)