Beschreibung:

HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. Autograph letter signed ("Hem" followed by "his mark" and a small drawing of a stein of beer -- "Hemingstein" being one of Hemingway's favorite nicknames) to "Dear Capo" (Coles Van Brunt Seeley, Jr.) in Newark, N.J., written from Boyne City, Michigan, 18 September 1919. 4 pages, 12mo, staining (mostly from damp) and fading, with original postmarked envelope addressed by Hemingway and with his Oak Park home address; half morocco slipcase. "IT WAS A GREAT LIFE WHILE IT LASTED" An early letter written during a fishing trip in northern Michigan. At the time Hemingway was trying to adjust to being home from the war and was attempting his first serious writing, without much success. Seeley was a war buddy whom Hemingway undoubtedly met at the hospital in Milan where he was recovering from his wounds. The letter was returned to Hemingway because of a wrong address. "...How's everything? By gosh I'd like to see you Capo. Didn't we have some damned good times...gosh I wish I were there now...After you left I went back out to the front, Mount Grappa, and had a hell of a time. Then spent a couple of more months in the Ospedale Maggiore...Have cursed every day that I've been back in this god damned dry arid, friendless country!...Everything off betwixt Ag. and I [Agnes von Kurowsky, his nurse at Milan and his first great love -- the model for Catherine Barkley in A Farewell to Arms ]. But it was a great life while it lasted..." Not in Letters , ed. Baker, and apparently unpublished. Provenance : Jonathan Goodwin (sale, Part I, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 29 March 1977, lot 150).