On display from March 6 through May 30, 2008
The exhibition presents a selection of unpublished and heretofore unseen letters of Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), part of an acquisition by the Penn State University Libraries of the last sizeable and significant known collection of the author’s letters in private hands. The collection, amassed by his sister Madelaine ("Sunny") Hemingway Mainland and passed on to her son, Ernest Hemingway Mainland, includes more than 100 letters, telegrams, and notes from Ernest Hemingway to his family, dating from 1917 to 1957.
Posted from northern Michigan, Kansas City, Milan, Toronto, Paris, Pamplona, the village of Schruns in the Austrian Tyrol, from Valencia, Montana, Key West, Bimini, Cuba, and Nairobi, Hemingway's letters home not only chart his movements through his eventful life and career, but track the course of his relationships with his parents, siblings, wives, and sons.
This important collection of Hemingway's letters to his family reveals new facets and enriches our understanding of these primary personal relationships. Most surprising to some will be the extent to which these letters contradict the common image of Hemingway the solitary artist, adventurer, and tough guy, unencumbered by if not estranged from his family. To be sure, the relationships were complicated and at times contentious. But despite the strains, the ties did bind. These letters show Hemingway's less familiar but no less honest faces: as loving husband, proud father, affectionate and devoted brother, and as caring and ever dutiful son.
The exhibition displays approximately a third of the letters in the collection, which will be cataloged and open to researchers later in the year. Also on display are selected pages of photographs from the "baby books" kept by Grace Hall Hemingway for her daughter Madelaine. The photo albums are a recent gift from Ernest Hemingway Mainland.
The exhibition was organized by guest curators Sandra Spanier, Professor of English and General Editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, and Verna Kale, Ph.D. candidate in the Department of English; and Sandra Stelts, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. A catalog, with an introduction by Sandra Spanier and exhibition text by Verna Kale, is in preparation. If you wish to receive a copy, please let us know.
Copyright restrictions prohibit the taking of photographs.
Press release
