The letters and photos of Ernest Hemingway and his family at home in Oak Park and at their summer place in Michigan were recently acquired by Middlebury College from the author’s nieces, Anne and Hilary. Hilary Hemingway’s husband graduated from Middlebury in 1975. Aside from being of interest to the writer’s fans and literary scholars, the materials provide a fascinating glimpse for a social historian into the lives of a prosperous Midwestern family during that period. One item contained in the papers is a first chapter to Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises, which he cut from the final version at the urging of his friend and fellow writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Archivist Tom Staley, director of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, which has its own extensive collection of Hemingway papers, said the carbon copy of that omitted chapter was a particularly fine catch for Middlebury. ”It’s always very interesting to see what the author left out,” Staley said. “It really tells you what their values are. . . . How do you proceed by elimination?” ”It looks like they got a very good collection there,” Staley said. “It matches very well with the other collections.”
Miami Herald
College Gets Archive From Author’s Family
(Oct. 7)
