Beschreibung:

Typed Letter Signed ("Papa") with autograph annotations, 1 p, 4to, San Francisco de Paula, Cuba, July 9, 1949, to Peter Viertel, on "Finca Vigia" letterhead, light creasing, otherwise fine. Hemingway writes this letter to Peter Viertel, a young novelist and screenwriter whom he met in Ketchum, Idaho in 1946. In early 1948, Viertel was hired by John Huston to write a screenplay set in Cuba (released as We Were Strangers in 1949). The two men and their wives went to Cuba to choose locations; Viertel looked up Hemingway, who invited the four to go fishing on his boat. Hemingway was not impressed with Huston but took a paternal interest in Viertel and lusted after his wife, Jigee. Viertel would go on to write the screenplays for The Sun Also Rises and for The Old Man and the Sea, and the two men remained friends until Hemingway's death. In part: "If you didn't get the long letter dated June 28 please cable. Sent it this same address. Maybe you are a subversive and the FBI has it. In that case I can probably write the director and get it released. / John sounds punchy. Maybe he got hit too much around the head when he was light weight champion of the Pacific coast as he told Mary and me that night." A few paragraphs down, Hemingway mentions Norman Mailer's debut novel: "Haven't read the Naklies and the Deads yet. Will do. Nice hopeful title. Sounds like wizard ops in prospect. Wonder how just The Fucked would be as a title. It's got sex anyway." Hemingway closes with a enthusiastic rememberance to Viertel's pretty wife: "My love to Jige--am a big thinker about people and certainly enjoy thinking about her. Can remember her looking about 22 different ways. Which high re-memberability score for a dame. Can remember everything you said on Escondido trip. Can't remember anything John said except The Story of Virginia Hill (The Heiress)."