Ernest Hemingway and the New Yorker: the Harold Ross files. (Notes).

Since its inception in 1925, The New Yorker magazine has been one of the most important venues for modern fiction. Yet Ernest Hemingway published only one short piece there, "My Own Life" in 1927. Scholars often attribute Hemingway's absence from The New Yorker to the magazine's inability to pay writers as well as its mass market competitors. However, the files of the magazine's founding editor, Harold Ross, tell a more complex story and reveal how, between 1942 and 1948, Ross repeatedly sought Hemingway contributions for The New Yorker and very nearly succeeded.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY'S LIMITED ASSOCIATION with The New Yorker magazine--a major influence in contemporary fiction since its debut in 1925--is striking. His sole contribution to The New Yorker, "My Own Life" a short parody of Frank Harris's My Life and Loves (3 vols., 1923-1927), appeared in the 12 February 1927 issue. If we think of Hemingway in connection with The New Yorker at all, we probably recall Lillian Ross's notorious and variously interpreted profile of him, "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?", printed in the magazine on 13 May 1950. Even Dorothy Parker's fawning profile of Hemingway in the 30 November 1929 issue, published in the wake of The New Yorker's review of A Farewell To Arms, (1) is more memorable than Hemingway's own brief attempt at drollery.

Hemingway's lone New Yorker piece, "My Own Life," was a heavy-handed attempt to parody Frank Harris's inflated account of his sexual conquests. In 1922, when Sylvia Beach asked Hemingway's advice about publishing Harris's My Life and Loves, Hemingway encouraged her to go ahead, saying it would be "the finest fiction ever written" (Baker, Life 100). As such, Hemingway felt the Harris autobiography merited ridicule, and sent a short parody to Maxwell Perkins in the fall of 1926, hoping that Scribner's magazine would publish it. If Perkins could not use the piece, Hemingway suggested, he might forward it to Edmund Wilson at The New Republic. When both of these possibilities failed, Hemingway was finally able to place the parody, several months later, in the fledgling New Yorker.

The New Yorker's chronic shortage of money explains in part why "My Own Life" would prove to be Hemingway's only contribution to the magazine. In its early years, The New Yorker could not afford to compete with mass market magazines for writers such as Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sinclair Lewis, among many others. The New Yorker did draw contributions from John O'Hara in the late 1920s, and by 1935 John Cheever began what would be a half-century association with the magazine. As The New Yorker persevered through the Depression, it steadily attracted a generation of younger authors, including Irwin Shaw, Jean Stafford, and, by 1941, J.D. Salinger, among so many others. But in The New Yorker's early years, as Thomas Kunkel points out, "serious fiction ... simply was not a ... priority" (306) for its founding editor, Harold Ross (1892-1951). In his prospectus for the magazine, Ross wrote that he sought to publish "prose and verse, short and long, humorous, satirical and miscellaneous."

Nonetheless, an examination of the Harold Ross files--housed since 1991 at the New York Public Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division (2)--reveals a more complex picture. While the magazine was frequently cash-strapped in its early years, Harold Ross corresponded with Hemingway between 1942 and 1948, and eventually interested him in writing again for The New Yorker. All indications suggest the two men enjoyed each other's company and maintained a friendship. On 4 September 1945, Hemingway wrote to his future wife, Mary Welsh, about plans to visit New York that fall. The letter suggests his respect not only for Ross, but for The New Yorker and its staff:

   I want to show up there for November though no matter what. And see the
   shows, and the museums, and the new painters, and old friends with good
   heads to talk to, and Mr. [Harold] Ross and Mr. [James] Thurber and Mr.
   [Robert] Benchley, and feel a northern fall again. And look in all the
   windows. (SL 600)

Ross, described by one of his biographers as "a now-and-then fishing companion of Hemingway's," had a decidedly mixed opinion of Hemingway as a writer (Kunkel, 248, 306). Roger Angell, both a New Yorker fiction editor and renowned baseball writer, (3) recalls Ross asking, "`What about this Hemingway? Is he any good?'" (in Kunkel, 248). According to Kunkel, "Ross might have his own opinion of Hemingway ... but at this moment his curiosity had overtaken his doubts, and he was genuinely interested in a different and younger perspective" (248). Ross may not have whole-heartedly embraced everything Hemingway wrote, but was a shrewd enough editor to realize the value of having a writer of Hemingway's stature among the magazine's contributors.

The Ross-Hemingway correspondence at the New York Public Library begins with Ross's letter of 20 November 1942 to Hemingway, then living at the Finca Vigia in Cuba. Ross complained about a letter he had received from Marshall Best of Viking Press concerning reprint rights, and enclosed a copy for Hemingway (Ross, Letters 194-195). Ross felt that he was "being driven to violence by these book publishers, half of whom are not above suspicion." The editor also reported on dining with their mutual friend, Kipper LaFarge, and observed that "one-third of our conversation was about you, practically all of it admiring." Ross looked forward to "get [ting] over" his ulcer, when he will "take to drinking again. I have had no fun in two years." He wrote about "the great pleasure" of taking Hemingway's "bride," Martha Gellhorn, to dinner at "21" during her recent visit to New York City, and closed with "Love and admiration for her and you."

Hemingway responded promptly on 28 November 1942, lambasting the publishing industry. Book publishers were all bastards, and the anthology business was a racket. Although Hemingway acknowledged that his own publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons, had been damned good to him on occasion, he was outraged by the fact that the firm would earn more from reprint rights to his work than he made as the author. He encouraged Ross to give Viking hell, responded favorably to his account of dinner at "21" with Martha, and sympathized over Ross's recurrent problem with ulcers, joking that the idea of Ross unable to drink was so distressing he had to mix himself a cocktail. Hemingway closed by inviting Ross to visit him in Cuba during the coming winter, and conveyed his regards to Ross's beautiful third wife, Ariane.

Ross replied on 6 December 1942, enclosing a copy of his six-page "exhaustive" letter of 3 December 1942 to Marshall Best (Letters, 195-98 [which Kunkel has dated incorrectly as "2 December 1942"]), and asked that Hemingway "Please read the God-damned thing." As for Hemingway's invitation to the Finca, Ross sent his regrets but added that perhaps he could make the trip after the war. In his closing paragraph Ross wrote pointedly: "If you do some short stories for us, they would be God-damned welcome, I'll tell you." (Ross, Letters, 198-99).

There is no record of any reply from Hemingway, but two months later Ross did hear from Martha, who wrote to chide Ross gently about problems she and Hemingway were having in Cuba with their subscription to The New Yorker. Although they had paid their bill, Martha wrote Ross on 8 February 1943, they had not received the magazine for some time. She also lamented the recent death of former New Yorker columnist Alexander Woollcott. Ross responded on 15 February 1943, explaining that due to personnel changes brought on by the war and a significant increase in the volume of subscriptions, the magazine's circulation department had gone "belly up." Nonetheless, he vowed to handle the matter for the Hemingways and shared his thoughts on Woollcott's death. Ross also took the occasion to make another pitch for Hemingway to contribute to The New Yorker. Sending along his "regards to Ernest," Ross added:

   [T]ell him that if ever writes a short story that he thinks the New Yorker
   ought to have, for God's sake to send it in to us. In the early years I
   never sent after him because we didn't pay anything. We don't pay much now,
   but we pay more than Esquire (although not using fishing stuff). (Letters,
   204-205)

Hemingway did not accept Ross's offer, but on 19 March 1943 Martha mailed Ross her first submission. Titled "War Correspondent," it was a short piece of "mild mockery" at the expense of wartime reporter Alice Leone Moats [whom Hemingway referred to as "Alice Baloney Bloats"]. Ross rejected Gellhorn's offering on 2 April 1943, explaining "the lamentable fact ... that we're choked up" on such parodies. Tactfully, he did not pass on the terse verdict of his managing editor for fiction, Gustave Lobrano, who wrote in a memo to Ross: "Hopeless piece." Ross also raised once again, albeit obliquely, the issue of a contribution by her husband. Noting how awkward it was to reject the submissions of his friends, Ross added "it doesn't embarrass me to get stories from my friends. It sometimes embarrasses me to ask friends for pieces, though, although I've made a couple of school-girl passes at Ernest in my day."

Because Hemingway still did not send any stories to the magazine, Ross tried again the following year to solicit a submission. Dated 3 February 1944, an unsigned, handwritten memo in the New Yorker files states that Ross sent Hemingway "a personal note" asking his friend to submit "some stories" to the magazine. No copy of Ross's "personal note" has survived, and there is no record of a Hemingway reply.

More than four years would pass before the next flurry of Ross-Hemingway correspondence, spanning a three-month period between 16 August and 24 November 1948. By then, Hemingway's marriage to Martha Gellhorn had ended and he was married to Mary Welsh. A young reporter for The New Yorker, Lillian Ross (who, incidentally, was not related to her employer), emerged to play the role of go-between in Harold Ross's quest to secure a Hemingway contribution. Lillian Ross's efforts began with an undated letter to Harold Ross--probably written in mid-August 1948--passing along information from a letter Hemingway had written to her on 29 July 1948. Lillian wrote that Hemingway planned to sail from Cuba to Paris on 7 September, and quoted him as writing: "`Maybe [Harold] Ross would make me a roveing [sic] correspondent'" (see also SL 649). Lillian explained to Harold what she saw as the great potential for the magazine in pursuing Hemingway, and she was careful to point out that his letters to her were far more interesting than his wartime contributions to Collier's. She also gave Ross Hemingway's address in Cuba.

On 26 August 1948, Harold Ross wrote Lillian to thank her for her suggestions. That same day he also wrote Hemingway a short note getting directly to the point: "Is it true that you're going to Europe, and if so would you want to do some pieces for us? I miss you." Hemingway responded warmly, on 6 September 1948, the day before he sailed on the Polish liner Jagiello. He asked Ross about what kind of pieces The New Yorker wanted, and how much the magazine could pay. He also sent along the address where he could be reached in Paris.

Harold Ross responded to Hemingway on 14 September 1948:

   Damned if I know what you could write for us, or what you will want to
   write. If you are going to revisit the old Paris hangouts; there might be a
   story in, that, and in the change, or lack of change, in Paris and its
   people and atmosphere. An obvious idea that, of course, but it might be
   good if you should be in the humor.

About payment, Ross noted that while length would be a factor, he guessed the price would range between $1,000 and $1,200, "more or less, and maybe more" (Letters 343-44).

No direct reply from Hemingway followed, but an undated letter from Lillian Ross to Harold Ross did. She reported that Hemingway had since moved on to Italy and had asked her to convey his idea of writing about "the environs of Venice" for The New Yorker. If Harold liked that idea for an article, Hemingway explained to Lillian, he should cable Hemingway regarding length and price. If Harold didn't like the idea, Hemingway emphasized, it would not be a problem, as they were both professionals and understood each other.

At last Harold Ross had what he had sought for six years. However, he was faced with a dilemma that "broke [his] heart," as he explained to Hemingway briefly in a cablegram and at length in a letter, both written on 24 November 1948. As it happened, Ross told Hemingway, he had already contracted with Alan Moorehead--who had earlier written on Portofino for the 25 September 1948 issue of The New Yorker--to write a piece on Venice. Moorehead's "Letter from Venice" was subsequently published in The New Yorker on 15 October 1949. Clearly embarrassed, Ross tried to move on to the lighter topic of saying how he would like to join his old friend in Italy now: "I wish to God I could get there, or anywhere else, but I was a damned fool and started a weekly magazine. One step like that blights a whole life." He closed his letter by gamely asking Hemingway to contact him "by mail, wire, pigeon, or somehow if you get ,any more urges for pieces, you might let me know."

Unfortunately for Ross, Hemingway apparently never had any more urges to write for The New Yorker. Nor is there any other correspondence between them in the magazine's files. Yet the two men remained friends. According to Mary Hemingway in How It Was, a later Hemingway-Ross social evening at "21" was the setting for Hemingway's famous confrontation with Irwin Shaw over his thinly-disguised portrayals of Ernest, Mary, and the author's brother Leicester Hemingway in Shaw's 1949 novel, The Young Lions. While Hemingway and Mary dined with Harold Ross and, as Mary put it, Ross's "blonde, giggly wife" Irwin Shaw "came to the table and Ernest exploded." According to Mary, her husband's "violent, scarifying critique of Shaw, his character, his person, his writing.... caused Ross to wiggle on the seat" (How It Was 261).

Be that as it may, Hemingway's most important appearance in Harold Ross's New Yorker remains as the subject, not the author, of Lillian Ross's 1950 profile, "How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen?". Yet, when Harold Ross died unexpectedly on 6 December 1951, during surgery for lung cancer, Hemingway was saddened by the loss of a man he clearly considered a friend. In an unpublished letter to Malcolm Cowley, Hemingway wrote of his affection for Ross and his sorrow that he could not be of help to him during his final illness. And to his own son Gregory, Hemingway penned the simplest and most correct epitaph for Harold Ross--He was a great editor--despite his failure to land Ernest Hemingway.

NOTES

(1.) In a 26 September 1929 cablegram to Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross wrote: "WE HAVE ALREADY GONE TO PRESS WITH HEMINGWAY REVIEW BUT LISTEN WONT YOU DO TWO THOUSAND WORD PROFILE HEMINGWAY? AND AVERT CALAMITY OF HAVING HIS BOOK COME OUT AND YOUR NOT WRITING SOMETHING ABOUT HIM PLEASE PLEASE LOVE / ROSS." Ernest Hemingway Collection, Incoming Correspondence, Box 70, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston.

(2.) The Ross-Hemingway file at the New York Public Library fills two folders dated 1942 and 1948, runs to 21 pages, and is kept in Box 50, one of 2,566 archival boxes comprising The New Yorker's records from 1924 to 1984. Ross also corresponded with Hemingway's third wife, Martha Gellhorn. His letters to her comprise 37 pages and fill another two folders, dated 1942-1943 and 1946, and filed in Box 47. Only a few of these letters have been published in Thomas Kunkel's Letters From the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross. The 1946 file of Martha Gellhorn's correspondence with Harold Ross is not relevant to this article. This material concerns her submission of an article on java, which Ross eventually rejected.

(3.) Roger Angell was also the son of New Yorker fiction editor Katharine S. White.

WORKS CITED

Baker, Carlos. Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story. New York: Scribner's, 1969.

Hemingway, Ernest. Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961. Ed. Carlos Baker. New York: Scribner's, 1981.

--. Letter to Malcolm Cowley. 14 December 1951. The Ernest Hemingway Collection. John F. Kennedy Library. Boston, MA.

--. Letter to Gregory Hemingway. 11 December 1951. The Ernest Hemingway Collection. John F. Kennedy Library. Boston, MA.

Hemingway, Mary Welsh. How It Was. New York: Knopf, 1976.

Kunkel, Thomas. Genius in Disguise: Harold Ross of The New Yorker. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1995.

The New Yorker Records, 1924-1984. Boxes 47 and 50. New York Public Library. New York, NY. Quoted by permission.

Ross, Harold. Letters From the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross. Ed. Thomas Kunkel. New York: Random House, 2000.

FRANCIS J. BOSHA
Kawamura Gakuen Women's University, Japan