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ALS, seven pages on three bifolia of Hotel Ambos Mundos stationery, 5.5 x 7, May 24, 1933. Lengthy handwritten letter from Havana, Cuba, to Esquire founder Arnold Gingrich, discussing a wide range of literary, professional, and personal matters. In part: “I remember Max Perkins…of whom I am very fond…asking me, in a letter, when I would stop calling him Mr. Perkins…I am very fond of him, really, but wrote him that it would cost me at least $10,000 to stop calling him Mr.—(it has) and I did…There is no one finer than Max…You are a damned intelligent (unpaid) critic…Esquire sounds bad to me (as title)…Am too damned tired at night to do more than stagger into bed [after fishing]…Later the night picks up and there is a certain amount of very interesting study of politics etc. But no letter writing. I will write you a damned good Cuban letter though.” Elsewhere, Hemingway writes enthusiastically of his fishing exploits: “Have caught 29 Marlin Swordfish…caught 7 last Saturday (believe a record for one rod fishing)…We have a good chance to get a world’s record fish—the hell with the record but by God you ought to see what a fish that size is like in the air. They move like a destroyer in the water.” He also mentions the illness of fellow author John Dos Passos, noting that he had departed for Antibes to recover. In very fine condition.
Written from Havana's Hotel Ambos Mundos, where Hemingway maintained a room during the early 1930s, this substantial letter dates from a formative period in his relationship with Arnold Gingrich, founder of Esquire. The correspondence captures Hemingway's candid views on literary professionalism, friendship, and publishing, including a memorable discussion of his longtime editor Maxwell Perkins, whose editorial guidance helped shape the careers of Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Thomas Wolfe. Equally characteristic are Hemingway's vivid observations on deep-sea fishing in Cuban waters, a pursuit that increasingly occupied his time and would become inseparable from both his public persona and his later writing. The letter offers a glimpse of Hemingway's life in Havana during the years immediately preceding the publication of Green Hills of Africa and To Have and Have Not.
The letter was written on May 24, 1933, several months before the debut issue of Esquire appeared in October 1933. Hemingway's remark that “Esquire sounds bad to me (as title)” captures his reaction to the magazine's proposed name while plans for the publication were still taking shape. His discussion of marlin fishing also anticipates ‘A Cuban Letter, Marlin off the Morro,’ his contribution to Esquire's inaugural issue. The first six pages of the letter were later reproduced in Carlos Baker's Selected Letters of Ernest Hemingway (1981); the seventh and final page was not included because a photocopy was apparently not made.
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