Beschreibung:

HEMINGWAY, Ernest (1899-1961). Autograph letter signed, facetiously, "Horace Fishbein (Hemingway)" to Donald Ogden Stewart, Pamplona, n.d. 2 pages, 4to . [ With :] TYPED UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT, n.d. 5pp., 4to, carbon, holograph notation "the end" in Hemingway's hand on p.5 . AN UNPUBLISHED COMIC MANUSCRIPT AND AN AUTOGRAPH LETTER FROM PAMPLONA: HEMINGWAY TAKES JOHN DOS PASSOS AND DONALD OGDEN STEWART INTO THE BULL RING A letter and an unpublished story about a crucial episode early in Hemingway's career. The young author prepares for the visit of two literary friends, John Dos Passos and Donald Ogden Stewart (both whom would soon be portrayed the following year in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises ). Stewart was a well-known satirist and playwright in the 1920s, and later the Academy Award winning screenwriter of The Philadelphia Story . Hemingway arranges for their rooms and travel, defends the quality of the local food and even blames it for disrupting his work. "It is with difficulty that I write. It is still three hours after lunch." He praises Stewart's discipline, "Glad to hear you are working. That is the only way to success." But then urges the travelers to "fool around" on the beaches of San Sebastian and cautions them to get aboard the Pamplona train early as there will be many Spaniards traveling to the fiesta . Once they arrived, his guests did not wait long before seeing action in the ring, where mornings were set aside for amateurs to take on small bulls with padded horns to prevent serious injury. "Ernest was terribly concerned about bullfighting," Stewart writes in his memoir, "and I was equally concerned about not letting Ernest down in his opinion of me." Stewart enjoyed watching the fights but resisted Hemingway's challenge to join in. Even the near-sighted Dos Passos took up a cape, only to have a bull charge him and leap over a wooden barrier after him. Dodging the flying bull, Stewart jumped down into the arena (while some Pamplonans pulled Dos Passos to safety) only to have some exuberant locals thrust a red cape into his own hands--with a snorting bull six feet away. The beast charged but "did not swerve as I expected" and Stewart "was hit full force. My glasses flew in one direction, the cape in another, and I was tossed into the air amid a great gleeful shout from the spectators." To his astonishment, Stewart was no longer afraid. "And not only that--I got mad." Now he charged the bull, shouting "Come on you stupid son-of-a-bitch!" The result was the same unfortunately. But "Ernest clapped me on the back, and I felt as though I had scored a winning touchdown" (Stewart, By a Stroke of Luck! , 131-133). Here, Hemingway memorializes this noble battle with his comic tale of "My Life in the Bull Ring with Donald Ogden Stewart," a five-page piece of slapstick that has Stewart making an absurd speech to the crowd before borrowing a sword and muleta from Hemingway and then being tossed around the ring like a rag doll. The piece ends with a battered Stewart croaking out his final wish to Hemingway to tell the world of his exploits. Biographer Kenneth Lynn claims this Pamplona episode played an important part in creating the hyper-macho persona of "Papa." Hemingway embellished the story to a journalist friend (see Baker, Selected Letters , 124) and the Chicago Tribune ran the tale, which by now had a gored Hemingway rassling Stewart's bull to the ground. The part about the padded horns was conveniently left out. "The story marked the take-off point of the general public's awareness of Hemingway the man," Lynn writes. "The mileage he got out of the Pamplona story was quite impressive" (Lynn, 262). Together 2 items . PROVENANCE: From the son of Donald Ogden Stewart. Only copy known in private hands. Original mss. of the story and one other carbon recorded in Hemingway Papers, JFK Library, Boston. RARE. (2)