The Letters of Ernest Hemingway

FAIN: RQ-50136-05

Penn State (University Park, PA 16802-1503)
Sandra W. Spanier (Project Director: November 2004 to July 2009)

Publication of volumes 1 and 2 of a 12-volume scholarly edition of Hemingway's letters and editorial work on volume 3. (36 months)

This project, launched in 2002, aims to publish a comprehensive scholarly edition of the estimated 7,000-8,000 letters of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), fewer than ten percent of them ever published. Hemingway's pioneering contributions to twentieth-century American literature made a profound and lasting impact on modern English-language prose style, and to this day, his life and work command enormous popular as well as scholarly interest worldwide. The letters represent the last frontier of Hemingway studies. In addition to providing new biographical and artistic insights into the achievement of this most influential American writer, the letters constitute a running eyewitness account and cultural history of much of the twentieth century. The edition, accepted for publication by the Cambridge University Press, will be published in twelve volumes over the next fourteen years. We are requesting NEH support over a three-year period to complete the first two volumes and begin work on the third.