Carlos Baker Collection of Ernest Hemingway 1800-1987 (mostly 1918-1967)

Summary

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Overview

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Abstract

Consists primarily of Carlos Baker's working papers and biographical files used in preparation of his biography Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969). This was the fourth book on Hemingway written or edited by Baker (1909-1987), a Princeton professor and author. Also present are manuscripts for a novel and book of poetry by Baker, unrelated to his work on Hemingway.

Description

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Description

The collection consists of the working papers and biographical files about Ernest Hemingway compiled by Baker, Princeton English professor, in preparation of his biography Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969). The working papers contain Xeroxes and typed copies of correspondence between Hemingway and friends, publishers, and family, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, C. T. Lanham, Maxwell Perkins, and Mary, Patrick, and Hadley Hemingway. There are drafts, a final typed version, and proofs for the biography, as well as a mock-up copy of the book. In addition, there are transcripts of articles written by Hemingway for the Toronto Star and Esquire, periodical articles by and about him, letters to Baker about Hemingway, copies of reviewers' comments, magazine interviews, material relating to Hemingway's winning of the Nobel Prize in literature (1954) and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (1953), a Xerox copy of the original manuscript of Hemingway's Islands in the Stream (1970), and a scrapbook.

The biographical files begin in the 1800s with material on the Hemingway family genealogy and span Hemingway's entire life, from his birth in 1899 to his suicide in 1961. The files include letters to Baker, copies of anecdotes, correspondence between other people about Hemingway, eyewitness accounts of Hemingway in World War II, excerpts from Mary Hemingway's diaries while in Africa, documents, memorabilia, such as Hemingway's 1917 yearbook from Oak Park High School (Illinois), and printed matter.

The collection also contains two of Baker's works unrelated to the Hemingway material: a typed manuscript with the author's corrections of a novel, The Land of Rumblelow (1963), and a typed manuscript with editor's notations of a book of poems, A Year and a Day: Poems (1963), as well as a small file of correspondence of Baker relating to his participation on the Pulitzer Prize Fiction Jury in 1975. In addition, there is a phonograph record (in Russian) with a typed transcript in English of Radio Liberation programs about Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago, and the award of the Nobel Prize to him in 1958.

Collection Creator Biography

Carlos Baker (1909-1987), educator, editor, poet, and author, was born in Maine, but resided in Princeton, New Jersey, since 1937. He did his undergraduate work at Dartmouth University, earned a masters at Harvard, and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1940. Baker remained at Princeton as a professor of English, 1938-1953, and then as Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature from 1953 to his retirement in 1977.

Baker's books include the first full-length critical interpretation of Ernest Hemingway's works, Hemingway: the Writer as Artist (1952), and the authorized biography, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969), which was acclaimed for its thoroughness and non-judgmental presentation of the facts of Hemingway's life and exploits. Carlos Baker also published short stories, poetry, literary criticism, novels, and essays, such as Shelley's Major Poetry: the Fabric of Vision (1948), The Land of Rumbelow (1963), and The Talisman and Other Stories (1976).

1899Born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, IL1917-1918Cub reporter, Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO 1918-1919Ambulance driver for Red Cross Ambulance Corps in Italy1920-1921Writer, Cooperative Commonwealth, Chicago, IL 1920Covered Greco-Turkish War for the Toronto Star1921Married Hadley Richardson, September 3 (divorced March 10, 1927)1921-1924European correspondent, Toronto Star1923Son John (“Bumby”, “Jack”) born, October 101923Published Three Stories & Ten Poems (Paris) 1924Published in our time (Paris) 1926Published The Sun Also Rises1927Published Men Without Women (stories) 1927Married Pauline Pfeiffer (a writer), May 10 (divorced November 4, 1940)1928Son Patrick (“Mouse”) born, June 281929Published A Farewell to Arms1931Son Gregory (“Gigi”) born, November 121933Published Winner Take Nothing (stories) 1937-1938Covered Spanish Civil War for North American Newspaper Alliance1940Published For Whom the Bell Tolls1940Married Martha Gellhorn (a writer), November 21 (divorced December 21, 1945)1941War correspondent in China1944-1945War correspondent in Europe1946Married Mary Welsh (a writer), March 141952Published The Old Man and the Sea1953Awarded Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea1954Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature1961Committed suicide, July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, ID1970Islands in the Stream published posthumously

Collection History

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Acquisition

Baker donated his collection to Princeton in the early 1980s, after his retirement as Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton University. Many of the papers are copies of Hemingway correspondence which Baker acquired from various libraries, individuals, and other undisclosed sources. He also corresponded with friends, relatives, and associates of Hemingway requesting copies of their correspondence or personal reminiscences of Hemingway.

Processing Information

This collection was processed by Barbara Volz in 1992. The finding aid was written by Barbara Volz in 1992.

Access and Use

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Access Restrictions

The collection is open for research. Researchers may be required to use surrogates of collection items stored in special vault facilities.

Use Restrictions

Single photocopies may be made for research purposes. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Permission to publish material from the collection must be requested from the Associate University Librarian for Rare Books and Special Collections. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright

Preferred Citation

Carlos Baker Collection of Ernest Hemingway; 1800s-1987 (mostly 1918-1967), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Find More

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Topics

• American literature
• Journalism
• Publishing history

Subject Terms

• American literature
• Biography
• Correspondence
• Faculty
• Manuscripts
• Nobel Prizes
• Novelists, American
• Princeton University
• Pulitzer Prizes

Alternative Form Available

The manuscripts found in draft form in the collection came to print in the following publications: Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), The Land of Rumblelow (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963), A Year and a Day: Poems (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1963), Islands in the Stream (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970).

Contents and Arrangement

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Arrangement

The collection has been arranged in the following series:

The organization of the Hemingway material in the collection reflects the order in which Baker kept and, presumably, used it.

Series 1: Ernest Hemingway Letters: A-Z, 1910-1961

Series 2: Hemingway Biographical Files, 1800s-1961

• Subseries 2A: General Files, 1800s-1961
• Subseries 2B: Miscellaneous Biographical Files, 1899-1939

Series 3: Works by Ernest Hemingway, 1917-1970

Series 4: Works by Carlos Baker, 1963-1975

Series 5: Printed Matter, 1935-1984

• Subseries 5A: Works by Ernest Hemingway, 1935 September 17-1960 September 19
• Subseries 5B: Works about Ernest Hemingway, undated

Series 6: Miscellaneous Material, 1952-1964