At the Hemingways: With Fifty Years of Correspondence Between Ernest and Marcelline Hemingway

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Summary: A Classic Work of Hemingway Biography-- Plus Letters!
Review: Originally published in 1962, At the Hemingways, by Ernest Hemingway's eldest sister, Marcelline, is a classic biography that's long been out of print. In celebration of this year's centennial of Hemingway's birth, the book has been republished with some attractive additions, giving Hemingway aficionados a fine opportunity to add an important volume to their bookshelves. Marcelline Sanford Hemingway recounts in immensely readable prose and in rich detail all the excitement of growing up in a large and unique family gifted in the arts and sciences. She recaptures both the cultural ferment of turn-of-the-century Chicago and the rustic tranquility of the Michigan woods, bringing the years of Hemingway's childhood and the various influences at play on his development alive as no one else could. What's more, this handsome new edition includes a foreword by Hemingway biographer Michael Reynolds, and, still more exciting, 50 years of previously unpublished letters between Hemingway and his sister, tracing their relationship from childhood up to Hemingway's suicide in 1961. A number of the Hemingway letters home from camping trips in Michigan, from the hospital where he convalesced from his wounding in WW I, and from Paris and Pamplona, are real treasures.