Details
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. Autograph letter signed ("Papa") to Virginia Viertel ("Jige"), "Hotel Gritti," Venice, 2 January 1950. 1 1/2 pages, 4to, in ink on rectos of two sheets of blue paper with his initialed postcript on two margins of second page, with long note signed ("M.") from Mary Hemingway to Virginia Viertel on lower half of second page, slightly wrinkled, small chip at bottom edge of first sheet.
"We drove Nice to Nervi (a small town after Genoa) on 31/12/49 and then here yesterday lunching at Bergamo enroute. Good food, nice people, good, not too good country, for the plain was dead with winter, and we made good time. No non-working friends here, all in the country or up at Cortina...Wonderful weather. Good place to work. Checked on all MSS. (also re-checked and triple checked) and cabled George at Ritz Bar to locate Ed Hotchner...and deliver him important message about MSS. [of Across the River and into the Trees] that was missing. Detailed exactly. Also Ed left the original of last part (starting 'mortaring the hell out of everything') and all original from there on until the end in the briefcase plus Madame LeGros' typing of it and four carbons. Certainly must have a bad effect on good reliable people; but they forget when they see me being careless at 1100 [hours] that I have been up since 0300 or 0400 or 0600 being careful...Am slightly goose-fleshy about MSS. since is first time since 1921 [actually 1922 when a valise containing virtually all of Hemingway's manuscripts was stolen at a Paris railway station] that found original first copy and four carbons all in same container. EH."
"We drove Nice to Nervi (a small town after Genoa) on 31/12/49 and then here yesterday lunching at Bergamo enroute. Good food, nice people, good, not too good country, for the plain was dead with winter, and we made good time. No non-working friends here, all in the country or up at Cortina...Wonderful weather. Good place to work. Checked on all MSS. (also re-checked and triple checked) and cabled George at Ritz Bar to locate Ed Hotchner...and deliver him important message about MSS. [of Across the River and into the Trees] that was missing. Detailed exactly. Also Ed left the original of last part (starting 'mortaring the hell out of everything') and all original from there on until the end in the briefcase plus Madame LeGros' typing of it and four carbons. Certainly must have a bad effect on good reliable people; but they forget when they see me being careless at 1100 [hours] that I have been up since 0300 or 0400 or 0600 being careful...Am slightly goose-fleshy about MSS. since is first time since 1921 [actually 1922 when a valise containing virtually all of Hemingway's manuscripts was stolen at a Paris railway station] that found original first copy and four carbons all in same container. EH."