LITERATURE 36 “This Fall, Winter And Now Spring… Is The Best Apprenticeship I’ve Ever Served”: Two Superb Hemingway Autograph Letters To His Biographer Charles Fenton Two superb Hemingway autograph letters signed (as “Ernest Hemingway” and “E.H.”) to Charles Fenton at Yale University, in which he discusses his safari, the Masai, the Nobel Prize, writing and criticism. Hemingway had taken a copy of Fenton’s dissertation with him on his safari in Africa. Charles Fenton, then a doctoral student, was preparing his dissertation on Hemingway. Hemingway took a copy, apparently provided to him by Fenton, with him on his 1953 hunting safari in Kenya. In the first of these two letters that Hemingway wrote on the same day, he discusses being an honorary game warden in Kenya, the Masai, the Nobel Prize (which he would win a year later, in 1954), and writing and criticism. “Am an honorary Game Warden for Kenya and am doing predator control with the dept. again. Have been learning to use a spear properly with the Masai... This fall, winter and now spring, for here, is the best apprenticeship I’ve ever served… I’m sorry I ran out of the money in the big dynamite prize [the Nobel]. But anyway am probably the only writer who ever placed in the event [the Nobel] who ever handled dynamite and was checked out on same. This is enough bull shit now. Best always, your friend Ernest Hemingway.” In the second letter, Hemingway writes: “Dear Charlie: For Christ sake forgive any pomposity… in my other note... We have been trying to get the Masai who hang around chewing bubble gum and drinking golden jeep sherry to kill lions on foot again... Am checking on what they hop up with and will bring you some if you like… I feel the need of it sometimes myself but do not use it… it… comes from the bark of a tree. Afterwards they are worthless for 3 days... Yrs. E.H.” Fine condition. 38HEMINGWAY, Ernest. Two autograph letters signed. Kenya, December 5, 1953. Two folios of blue paper, penned on the rectos for two pages, measuring 8 by 10 inches. Housed together with original air mail envelopes in a custom box. $18,500
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