Beschreibung:

HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Typed letter signed ("Ernest" in pencil) to Jane Mason ("Poor dear old daughter") at Doctors' Hospital in New York; n.p., n.d. [envelope postmarked Key West, 28 July 1933]. 3 pages, 4to, on four sheets of poor quality tan paper, the first page single-spaced, the others double-spaced, with a 14-word holograph ink insertion by Hemingway, nine small fold holes (touching or partially injuring about six letters), with the envelope (torn) with address typed by Hemingway . "WORKED LIKE HELL YESTERDAY ON STORY" "Are you any better and how is the damned pain? I can't imagine anything worse than shin bone into back -- and in hot weather. You've had a worse torture than the bloody martyrs...It is July here and prickly heat. It seems a long time since anything was cool except drinks. And if this is a bad letter daughter just skip along and I'll write along because on tal dia como hoy there's no such thing as a good letter..." Hemingway devotes most of the first page describing plans (and guns) for the imminent trip to Europe and Africa; he then continues: "...Worked like hell yesterday on story ['Fathers and Sons']. Started 7.30, didn't knock off until 3. Finished it. One I had to re-do for Max [Perkins] for book [ Winner Take Nothing , to be published in late October]. Day before wrote 2500 words on the fishing for that bludy de luxe magazine, sort of quarterly like Fortune , to be for men and called of all lousy titles Esquire. Esquire my derrier. My derrier, Esq. [The first issue of Esquire , August l933, featured Hemingway's 'Marlin Off the Morro: A Cuban Letter.']...Archie [Archibald MacLeish] seemed very upset that no close relatives were around to look after you when you were deciding about that operation. But he called up and got all information on it he could and they seemed to agree that that was all there was to do for a crushed vertebra. Josie's boat got to leaking pretty badly from where that big bill split a plank and Josie said something about a leaky boat and a cranky woman and my agile brain got it turned around to be a cranky boat and a leaky woman in no time. Then I got to thinking about how Grant's boat had a leaky base while his wife had only a broken crankshaft. But, my agile brain insisted, she's not cranky..." "Here it is page three and this still only Friday. Now if I'd started triple spacing earlier this would be page nine and you could read Anthony Adverse instead [the year's big bestseller by Hervey Allen]...My arm, where I fell over the buso , is still supurating. This is just to let you know other people have their troubles too... Pauline says maybe I'm a supurater like the Spanish royal family are bleeders. Poetry: Some supurate early Some supurate late But sooner or later all superate. Copy that out and sign it yourself, wrap up a bit of vertebrae and swear to it before a notary public and you can probably sell it for a handsome sum as an early Marie Harriman if they are still wearing them. Down here we're out of touch with everything. It's only by reading [Joseph] Hergesheimer that I know what is going on in the great world at all..."