A major collection of Ernest Hemingway material, including original manuscripts, letters, photos, recordings, and home movies, has been donated to the Library of Congress by Hemingway’s friend and biographer A. E. Hotchner.
The donation, the first large collection of Hemingway material to go to LC, contains unpublished letters; early drafts of later novels; several unpublished poems, articles, and stories; and 15 spools of magnetized wire recordings on which the author relates his experiences during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War.
The gift marks Hemingway’s 100th birthday this year and the library’s 200th in 2000, the Associated Press noted October 26. “This personal collection provides an intimate insight into the life and mind of one of the 20th century’s great literary figures,” said Librarian of Congress James Billington.
John Hemingway, the author’s eldest son, also made a gift to the library: the “first copy” of his father’s first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems, published in Paris in 1923 and inscribed to his first wife, Hadley, John’s mother.
Posted November 1, 1999.