Hemingway, Ernest | Autograph letter signed to Marcelline and Madelaine Hemingway; when Ernest met Agnes - photo 1
Hemingway, Ernest | Autograph letter signed to Marcelline and Madelaine Hemingway; when Ernest met Agnes - photo 2
Hemingway, Ernest | Autograph letter signed to Marcelline and Madelaine Hemingway; when Ernest met Agnes - photo 3

Hemingway, Ernest | Autograph letter signed to Marcelline and Madelaine Hemingway; when Ernest met Agnes

Lot 18
08.12.2023 12:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 25 400
AuctioneerSotheby´s
Event locationUSA, New York
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Archive
ID 1105465
Lot 18 | Hemingway, Ernest | Autograph letter signed to Marcelline and Madelaine Hemingway; when Ernest met Agnes
Estimate value
$ 20 000 – 30 000
Hemingway, Ernest
Autograph letter signed ("Ernie"), to his sisters Marcelline and Madelaine Hemingway ("Dear Ivory and Nun Bones") at Oak Park Illinois

3 1/2 pages (272 x 210 mm) written recto and verso on 2 sheets of American Red Cross | La Croce Rossa Americana letterhead, numbered [I–] IV, Milan "Hospital," 21 September 1918, accompanied by the original autograph envelope directed to Marcelline only, signed on the verso with return address ("Da Tenente Ernest Hemingway | Croce Rossa Americana | Ospedale Milano Ospedale Italia 1"); envelope edgeworn and lightly soiled, small chip at lower margin just touch U of U.S.A. in address.

"I know a wonderful American girl over here." In the spring of 1918 Hemingway enlisted in the American Red Cross to drive ambulances for the Italian army. He arrived with the other drivers at Schio, Italy, on 4 June. A month later, on 8 July, he was badly wounded at the Piave River front by an Austrian trench mortal shell and spent the rest of the war recuperating at the Red Cross Hospital in Milan. The "wonderful American girl" he mentions was Agnes von Kurowsky, an American Red Cross nurse at the hospital, with whom the young Hemingway fell madly in love. A romance developed and he proposed marriage. But she had not made up her mind when he returned to the United States in January 1919; a few months later she broke off the affair. Agnes von Kurowsky became the model for Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms and for Luz in "A Very Short Story." Hemingway’s convalescence in Milan also is the setting for the story "In Another Country."

Hemingway begins by thanking his sisters for their letters and hinting that he would like to hear from them more frequently. He reports, "I'm still in the hospital and probably will linger for about 3 weeks more. Believe me kids, the Old Master is an authority on hospitals. Darn near three months already." He also assures Marcelline that he will try to look up a suitor of hers, Bill Hutchins, who was serving in the U.S. Army Ambulance Service.

Despite claiming that he hasn't "a thing to relate," Hemingway provides updates the girls on his recuperation, his view of the progress of the war, and his recent awards and citations. "You know Milano is some town, about 690,000. Good opera and everything. I go out and walk around the town almost every aft and sure know the old burg. After the war I’ll be qualified to run a rubber lunch wagon through Italy. When I walk it looks like I had locomotor ataxia but that will all clear up. My right knee bends a little now. Gee but I get anxious to get back to the front. I don’t know exactly what I will do now that I have been commissioned a 1st Lieut. but know I will have charge of a front line post somewhere. Aren’t things going great in France? Next fall will see the Germans smashed completely and the Italians will anihilate the Austriens [in fact, the war would end in two months]. Now Ivory I will give you a full list of the old master’s titles and other stuff. Tenente Ernesto Hemingway: Proposto Al Medaglia D'Argento, (valore) proposto per Croce D'Guerra Ferito Da Prima linae D'Guerra. Promptzione for Merito D'Guerra. Translated that means that the old Jazz hound is a First Lieut, cited for the Silver valour medal, cited for the war cross, wounded in the first lines and promoted for merit." (As an ambulance driver, Hemingway was accorded a rating of honorary second lieutenant in the Italian Army.)

Having recited his military honors, Hemingway is quick to diminish them: "Now aint he stuck up? He aint though, I hope. I’ve only got one ambition though, but then I better not tell it. Huh?" Hemingway's "one ambition" may have had to do with Agnes von Kurowsky, whose very name he does not tell. "Thank everybody that asked about me and give 'em all my love. I know a wonderful American girl over here so I’m not a bit lonesome for any of the X ones. None of them have a prayer." After telling a battlefield "yarn" that utilizes an unfortunate racial epithet, Hemingway concludes by throwing some 1918 shade at his sisters' beaux: "I'll bet you kids had a rare time while the parents were away, what? Well be good and write me soon and don't break too many Jackies hearts! What do they do anyway besides go to dances?"
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