![HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The recently discovered autograph manuscript of his famous story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 104 pages (including three inserted pages), 4to, in pencil on rectos only, a working first draft with very extensive revisions by Hemingway; the first four pages and an inserted page (at page 77) on white paper, 270 x 120 mm. (10½ x 8¼ in.), the first page slightly stained, the second page more so, several marginal tears in the p.3 professionally mended, the rest of the manuscript on sheets of poor quality paper, 277 x 210 mm. (107/8 x 8¼ in.), several corners and a few edges slightly chipped, just touching a word at a few places, bottom edges of pages 55 and 58 frayed with partial loss of a few words, top edge of page 64 chipped, light mostly marginal dampstaining to last seven pages, each sheet in acid-free mylar sleeve; considering the nature of the paper used and the length of the manuscript, it is actually in quite](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2000/NYR/2000_NYR_09364_0302_000(011323).jpg?w=1)
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HEMINGWAY, Ernest. The recently discovered autograph manuscript of his famous story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." [Key West, finished April 1936]. 104 pages (including three inserted pages), 4to, in pencil on rectos only, a working first draft with very extensive revisions by Hemingway; the first four pages and an inserted page (at page 77) on white paper, 270 x 120 mm. (10½ x 8¼ in.), the first page slightly stained, the second page more so, several marginal tears in the p.3 professionally mended, the rest of the manuscript on sheets of poor quality paper, 277 x 210 mm. (107/8 x 8¼ in.), several corners and a few edges slightly chipped, just touching a word at a few places, bottom edges of pages 55 and 58 frayed with partial loss of a few words, top edge of page 64 chipped, light mostly marginal dampstaining to last seven pages, each sheet in acid-free mylar sleeve; considering the nature of the paper used and the length of the manuscript, it is actually in quite good condition.
A LITERARY FIND: THE MANUSCRIPT OF HEMINGWAY'S LONGEST AND ONE OF HIS FINEST STORIES
Hemingway seems to have made a start on "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" in fall 1934, but it wasn't until spring 1936 that the safari tale--which had been developed along with "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (his only other story set in Africa)--began reaching its final form. After rejecting a number of titles--the tentative "A Comedy with Animals" has been erased at the head of the first page, but is discernable--Hemingway gave the story its present title. It is his longest story both in terms of manuscript length ("Big Two-Hearted River" is next) and printed text (edging out "The Undefeated" by some three pages). "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" was first published in Cosmopolitan (September 1936) and was then collected in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories (1938), where it is the opening story. It has since become one of his most celebrated and reprinted stories. (The Macomber Affair, a movie based on the work and with a script more faithful to Hemingway's text than most, was released in 1947).
"Short Happy Life" is the story of a 35-year-old wealthy American sportsman on his first safari in East Africa with his wife (Margot) of eleven years and a white hunter (Robert Wilson). During a lion hunt Francis Macomber is overcome by fear and bolts when the wounded beast springs. The lion is then bravely killed at close range by Wilson. Margot Macomber shows her contempt for her husband by bitchily taunting him and by sleeping with the white hunter (who travels with a double-size cot for just such circumstances). The next day during a buffalo hunt when they encounter three large bulls, Macomber is able to conquer his fear. During his brief period of elation over his newly found courage and assertiveness, Francis Macomber lives his "short happy life." In his excitement he aims too high at a charging wounded buffalo. He adjusts his aim and then "he felt a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt." Hemingway describes it most exactly: "Mrs. Macomber, [who had been left behind] in the car, had shot at the buffalo with the 6.5 Mannlicher as it seemed about to gore Macomber and had hit her husband about two inches up and a little to one side of the base of his skull." Was it an accident? Did Margot Macomber shoot her husband because she sensed her sway over him was coming to an end? As would be expected, critical opinion is sharply divided and published work on the story is extensive (see the checklist in New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, ed. Jackson H. Benson).
There is little doubt that the beautiful socialite Jane Mason was the model for the beautiful, bitchy, and deadly Margot Macomber. "While Ernest was making last revisions to the story...Grant and Jane Mason, prototypes for the fictional Francis and Margot Macomber, motor their [boat] into the Key West yacht basin for a few days' visit. While the Masons dine at the Hemingway table, out in the writing room sits the manuscript [offered here] describing Margot as 'an extremely handsome and well-kept woman' who 'five years before, commanded five thousand dollars as the price of endorsing, with photographs, a beauty product which she had never used'" (Michael Reynolds, Hemingway: The 1930s, pp. 223-224). As Reynolds notes, Hemingway had a clipping of a magazine advertisement Jane Mason did for a face-cream, a product she had never used. "Except for the fact that her hair is dark and that she is 'well-kept' rather than young, the wonderfully handsome, perfectly oval-faced Margot is the spitting image of Jane Mason. In an essay called 'The Art of the Short Story,' written in...1959 but unpublished until 1981, Hemingway would affirm, without mentioning her name, that Jane had indeed been his model for Margot. 'I invented her complete with handles from the worst bitch I knew (then) and when I first knew her she'd been lovely. Not my dish, not my pigeon, not my cup of tea, but lovely for what she was, and I was her all of the above, which is whatever you make of it'" (Kenneth S. Lynn, Hemingway, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 432). Probably at some point in the spring or summer of 1936 Hemingway gave Jane Mason this manuscript: the portrait, no matter how unflattering she might have found it, was at least of her.
"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" was written when Hemingway was at a peak of his creative powers -- "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Capital of the World" also date from this time -- and the manuscript exhibits his artistic command of the material. Although there are extensive revisions, the manuscript is very close to the printed text. The dialogue comes out very nearly as in the published form: whole pages are written with little or no revisions. Most of Hemingway emendations involve descriptions of terrain or landscape or of his characters: at pages 21-22, for instance, nearly a page of manuscript is crossed out; in several other places whole sentences are scored through and throughout the manuscript single words and phrases are altered. At the very beginning two false starts are crossed out; and in the early pages Macomber's name changes from "Robert" to "Donald" to finally "Francis." But once Hemingway gets underway, the story which had germinated since his own African safari of 1933-34, pours forth from his pencil (actually pencils, since several were used). There are extensive insertions -- interlinear and continuing into margins -- often added the next day after Hemingway read over his work. All of his crossed through copy, since it is done in pencil, can easily be read.
In a story that is complex in shifting points of view and in time changes, the following quotation from the manuscript -- one amazing sentence -- shows Hemingway at work (replaced words are in brackets): "He heard the [roar cara-wong] ca-ra-wong! of Wilson's big rifle, and again in a second crashing [roar] carawong! and turning saw the lion, horrible looking now, with half his head seeming to be gone crawling toward Wilson in the edge of the tall grass while the red faced man worked the bolt on the short ugly rifle and aimed carefully as another blasting carawong! came from the muzzle and the [great, pitiful] crawling, heavy, yellow bulk of the lion stiffened and the huge, mutilated head slid forward and Macomber, standing by himself, in the [field] clearing where he had run holding a loaded rifle, while two black men and a white man looked back at him in contempt, knew the lion was dead."
Of other manuscripts of the story, Young and Mann 81 A-D list four autograph manuscript fragments, totalling 16 pages, of "an extremely early draft" at the John F. Kennedy Library; and Hanneman F6a locates a "corrected typescript, signed, 39 pages," at The Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "With the three stories of 1936 -- 'The Capital of the World,' 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,' and 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' -- Hemingway 'reaches the threshold of his final phrase as a tragic writer' and crosses it into For Whom the Bell Tolls. All three stories approach the formal structure and emotional intensity of classic tragedy with characters who risk death in obedience to some primary drive and achieve something of a tragic transcendence" (Paul Smith in New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, p. 378). The last time a Hemingway autograph manuscript of this importance appeared at auction was in 1958 when the holograph manuscript of Death in the Afternoon was purchased for the University of Texas (for $13,000). As has been noted, with the discovery of the autograph manuscripts of "The Light of the World" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" all are now accounted for and the appearance of another is remote indeed. This is it!
A LITERARY FIND: THE MANUSCRIPT OF HEMINGWAY'S LONGEST AND ONE OF HIS FINEST STORIES
Hemingway seems to have made a start on "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" in fall 1934, but it wasn't until spring 1936 that the safari tale--which had been developed along with "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (his only other story set in Africa)--began reaching its final form. After rejecting a number of titles--the tentative "A Comedy with Animals" has been erased at the head of the first page, but is discernable--Hemingway gave the story its present title. It is his longest story both in terms of manuscript length ("Big Two-Hearted River" is next) and printed text (edging out "The Undefeated" by some three pages). "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" was first published in Cosmopolitan (September 1936) and was then collected in The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories (1938), where it is the opening story. It has since become one of his most celebrated and reprinted stories. (The Macomber Affair, a movie based on the work and with a script more faithful to Hemingway's text than most, was released in 1947).
"Short Happy Life" is the story of a 35-year-old wealthy American sportsman on his first safari in East Africa with his wife (Margot) of eleven years and a white hunter (Robert Wilson). During a lion hunt Francis Macomber is overcome by fear and bolts when the wounded beast springs. The lion is then bravely killed at close range by Wilson. Margot Macomber shows her contempt for her husband by bitchily taunting him and by sleeping with the white hunter (who travels with a double-size cot for just such circumstances). The next day during a buffalo hunt when they encounter three large bulls, Macomber is able to conquer his fear. During his brief period of elation over his newly found courage and assertiveness, Francis Macomber lives his "short happy life." In his excitement he aims too high at a charging wounded buffalo. He adjusts his aim and then "he felt a sudden white-hot, blinding flash explode inside his head and that was all he ever felt." Hemingway describes it most exactly: "Mrs. Macomber, [who had been left behind] in the car, had shot at the buffalo with the 6.5 Mannlicher as it seemed about to gore Macomber and had hit her husband about two inches up and a little to one side of the base of his skull." Was it an accident? Did Margot Macomber shoot her husband because she sensed her sway over him was coming to an end? As would be expected, critical opinion is sharply divided and published work on the story is extensive (see the checklist in New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, ed. Jackson H. Benson).
There is little doubt that the beautiful socialite Jane Mason was the model for the beautiful, bitchy, and deadly Margot Macomber. "While Ernest was making last revisions to the story...Grant and Jane Mason, prototypes for the fictional Francis and Margot Macomber, motor their [boat] into the Key West yacht basin for a few days' visit. While the Masons dine at the Hemingway table, out in the writing room sits the manuscript [offered here] describing Margot as 'an extremely handsome and well-kept woman' who 'five years before, commanded five thousand dollars as the price of endorsing, with photographs, a beauty product which she had never used'" (Michael Reynolds, Hemingway: The 1930s, pp. 223-224). As Reynolds notes, Hemingway had a clipping of a magazine advertisement Jane Mason did for a face-cream, a product she had never used. "Except for the fact that her hair is dark and that she is 'well-kept' rather than young, the wonderfully handsome, perfectly oval-faced Margot is the spitting image of Jane Mason. In an essay called 'The Art of the Short Story,' written in...1959 but unpublished until 1981, Hemingway would affirm, without mentioning her name, that Jane had indeed been his model for Margot. 'I invented her complete with handles from the worst bitch I knew (then) and when I first knew her she'd been lovely. Not my dish, not my pigeon, not my cup of tea, but lovely for what she was, and I was her all of the above, which is whatever you make of it'" (Kenneth S. Lynn, Hemingway, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995, p. 432). Probably at some point in the spring or summer of 1936 Hemingway gave Jane Mason this manuscript: the portrait, no matter how unflattering she might have found it, was at least of her.
"The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" was written when Hemingway was at a peak of his creative powers -- "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Capital of the World" also date from this time -- and the manuscript exhibits his artistic command of the material. Although there are extensive revisions, the manuscript is very close to the printed text. The dialogue comes out very nearly as in the published form: whole pages are written with little or no revisions. Most of Hemingway emendations involve descriptions of terrain or landscape or of his characters: at pages 21-22, for instance, nearly a page of manuscript is crossed out; in several other places whole sentences are scored through and throughout the manuscript single words and phrases are altered. At the very beginning two false starts are crossed out; and in the early pages Macomber's name changes from "Robert" to "Donald" to finally "Francis." But once Hemingway gets underway, the story which had germinated since his own African safari of 1933-34, pours forth from his pencil (actually pencils, since several were used). There are extensive insertions -- interlinear and continuing into margins -- often added the next day after Hemingway read over his work. All of his crossed through copy, since it is done in pencil, can easily be read.
In a story that is complex in shifting points of view and in time changes, the following quotation from the manuscript -- one amazing sentence -- shows Hemingway at work (replaced words are in brackets): "He heard the [roar cara-wong] ca-ra-wong! of Wilson's big rifle, and again in a second crashing [roar] carawong! and turning saw the lion, horrible looking now, with half his head seeming to be gone crawling toward Wilson in the edge of the tall grass while the red faced man worked the bolt on the short ugly rifle and aimed carefully as another blasting carawong! came from the muzzle and the [great, pitiful] crawling, heavy, yellow bulk of the lion stiffened and the huge, mutilated head slid forward and Macomber, standing by himself, in the [field] clearing where he had run holding a loaded rifle, while two black men and a white man looked back at him in contempt, knew the lion was dead."
Of other manuscripts of the story, Young and Mann 81 A-D list four autograph manuscript fragments, totalling 16 pages, of "an extremely early draft" at the John F. Kennedy Library; and Hanneman F6a locates a "corrected typescript, signed, 39 pages," at The Morris Library, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "With the three stories of 1936 -- 'The Capital of the World,' 'The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,' and 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' -- Hemingway 'reaches the threshold of his final phrase as a tragic writer' and crosses it into For Whom the Bell Tolls. All three stories approach the formal structure and emotional intensity of classic tragedy with characters who risk death in obedience to some primary drive and achieve something of a tragic transcendence" (Paul Smith in New Critical Approaches to the Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, p. 378). The last time a Hemingway autograph manuscript of this importance appeared at auction was in 1958 when the holograph manuscript of Death in the Afternoon was purchased for the University of Texas (for $13,000). As has been noted, with the discovery of the autograph manuscripts of "The Light of the World" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" all are now accounted for and the appearance of another is remote indeed. This is it!