Ernest Hemingway

Typed Letter Signed (“Ernest Hemingway”) with long autograph postscript, 1 p, 4to. Key West, December 13, 1934, written to Carlo Tresca. Damp-stained, toned and bled—but for over 80 years old, still a remarkable part of Hemingway history during an important period of his life. Matted and framed 13″ x 16″ overall. Superb provenance: Charles Hamilton, Oct. 2, 1975; the Autograph Collection of Harry E. Gould, Jr.

Hemingway advocates for a political prisoner of the Spanish Civil War, writing to the Italian-American Socialist editor Carlo Tresca about their joint efforts to secure the release of the Cubist painter Luis Quintanilla (1893-1978). Quintanilla was a friend from Hemingway’s Paris days; they first met at a bar in Montparnasse in 1922.

Quintanilla was arrested on October 5, 1934 for being a member of the Revolutionary Committee. Here, Hemingway pools his resources with Tresca and novelist John Dos Passos in efforts to pressure Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco in freeing Quintanilla. Hemingway’s autograph postscript reads in full: “I do not believe it will work but I think it has a better chance right now than anything else except personal influence: by which everything in Spain is always done. / What will over-throw the military is having brought in the Moors. But that is too long to wait for. I wish I could have been there to see it so I could write about it.”