Letters from the Hemingway Family Archive

Compiled by writer Leicester Hemingway (1915-1982), the younger brother of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), in the process of researching and writing his biography, My Brother Ernest Hemingway (1962), the collection contains more than 1,600 items.

Among the manuscript holdings, the bulk of which date from the mid-19th century until shortly before the author's death in 1961, are original letters, diaries, notes, original stories, and architectural drawings of Ernest's family including his mother, father, grandparents, and siblings. Items of particular interest include diaries of grandfather Anson Hemingway dating from the 1850s; family Civil War letters; courtship letters of his parents, Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway, prior to and after their marriage; and letters to Grace from Ernest's four wives, (Elizabeth) Hadley Richardson (1921-1928), Pauline Pfeiffer (1928-1940), Martha Gellhorn (1940-1945), and Mary Welsh (1945-1961).