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ALS signed “Best always from your pal Ernie, Ernest Hemingway,” two pages, 8.5 x 11, Finca Vigia letterhead, February 7, 1943. Handwritten letter to his close friend George Brown, who was introduced to Hemingway in the winter of 1940-41 when he began giving boxing lessons to the writer at his gym in New York City. In part: "Hell pal I am certainly glad it was another guy dead and not poor old Papa. But imagine a guy whose best punch is a vicious hook and that one hand on the rope stuff thinking he could have damaged my ticker. My brains have never been quite the same since those trading sessions we used to have after I came home from China but you must be remembering Kelly or somebody you hit with that terrible right. You have a lovely left hand better even than Sidney Smith but 90% of your right is that terrible & mean killer hook you scare the Kelly's with.
Kelly is down here golfing his way through the war in wonderful shape. I don't see him much on account of me not being a golfer. Bumby is in the Army. So far Mousie and Giggy are out. I know some funny things but no can write. After the war will tell you some of the goddamnest lies you ever heard. Marty is fine. Looks lovely. Working hard writing a book. I haven't written a line since last August. Don't know what we will use for money this year. Mangoes maybe. Am out in the water most of time and in good shape at 220—run a couple of miles and swim maybe a mile and the boat in bad weather gives you more exercise than you'd think." In fine condition.
Hemingway had purchased his Cuban estate, Finca Vigia, in December 1940 as a Christmas present to himself and his new wife, the journalist Martha Gellhorn ('Marty'), and spent most winters there. He completed his manuscript for the war story anthology Men at War in August 1942, and here relates: 'I haven't written a line since.' At this point, Hemingway's life was marked by increased domestic strife with his wife, whose absences to cover WWII in Europe left him feeling isolated. He turned to heavier drinking and more frequent fishing, leading to a decline in his literary output: it would be several years before he released another major work, publishing Across the River and into the Trees in 1950.
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