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Carlos Baker Collection of Ernest Hemingway
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Held at: Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division [Contact Us]
This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held at the Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in their reading room, and not digitally available through the web.
Overview and metadata sections
Carlos Baker (1909-1987), educator, editor, poet, and author, was born in Maine, but resided in Princeton, New Jersey, since 1937. He did his undergraduate work at Dartmouth University, earned a masters at Harvard, and received his doctorate from Princeton University in 1940. Baker remained at Princeton as a professor of English, 1938-1953, and then as Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature from 1953 to his retirement in 1977.
Baker's books include the first full-length critical interpretation of Ernest Hemingway's works, Hemingway: the Writer as Artist (1952), and the authorized biography, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969), which was acclaimed for its thoroughness and non-judgmental presentation of the facts of Hemingway's life and exploits. Carlos Baker also published short stories, poetry, literary criticism, novels, and essays, such as Shelley's Major Poetry: the Fabric of Vision (1948), The Land of Rumbelow (1963), and The Talisman and Other Stories (1976).
1899 Born July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, IL 1917-1918 Cub reporter, Kansas City Star, Kansas City, MO 1918-1919 Ambulance driver for Red Cross Ambulance Corps in Italy 1920-1921 Writer, Cooperative Commonwealth, Chicago, IL 1920 Covered Greco-Turkish War for the Toronto Star 1921 Married Hadley Richardson, September 3 (divorced March 10, 1927) 1921-1924 European correspondent, Toronto Star 1923 Son John ("Bumby", "Jack") born, October 10 1923 Published Three Stories & Ten Poems (Paris) 1924 Published in our time (Paris) 1926 Published The Sun Also Rises 1927 Published Men Without Women (stories) 1927 Married Pauline Pfeiffer (a writer), May 10 (divorced November 4, 1940) 1928 Son Patrick ("Mouse") born, June 28 1929 Published A Farewell to Arms 1931 Son Gregory ("Gigi") born, November 12 1933 Published Winner Take Nothing (stories) 1937-1938 Covered Spanish Civil War for North American Newspaper Alliance 1940 Published For Whom the Bell Tolls 1940 Married Martha Gellhorn (a writer), November 21 (divorced December 21, 1945) 1941 War correspondent in China 1944-1945 War correspondent in Europe 1946 Married Mary Welsh (a writer), March 14 1952 Published The Old Man and the Sea 1953 Awarded Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea 1954 Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature 1961 Committed suicide, July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, ID 1970 Islands in the Stream published posthumously
The collection consists of the working papers and biographical files about Ernest Hemingway compiled by Baker, Princeton English professor, in preparation of his biography Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969). The working papers contain Xeroxes and typed copies of correspondence between Hemingway and friends, publishers, and family, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, C. T. Lanham, Maxwell Perkins, and Mary, Patrick, and Hadley Hemingway. There are drafts, a final typed version, and proofs for the biography, as well as a mock-up copy of the book. In addition, there are transcripts of articles written by Hemingway for the Toronto Star and Esquire, periodical articles by and about him, letters to Baker about Hemingway, copies of reviewers' comments, magazine interviews, material relating to Hemingway's winning of the Nobel Prize in literature (1954) and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction (1953), a Xerox copy of the original manuscript of Hemingway's Islands in the Stream (1970), and a scrapbook.
The biographical files begin in the 1800s with material on the Hemingway family genealogy and span Hemingway's entire life, from his birth in 1899 to his suicide in 1961. The files include letters to Baker, copies of anecdotes, correspondence between other people about Hemingway, eyewitness accounts of Hemingway in World War II, excerpts from Mary Hemingway's diaries while in Africa, documents, memorabilia, such as Hemingway's 1917 yearbook from Oak Park High School (Illinois), and printed matter.
The collection also contains two of Baker's works unrelated to the Hemingway material: a typed manuscript with the author's corrections of a novel, The Land of Rumblelow (1963), and a typed manuscript with editor's notations of a book of poems, A Year and a Day: Poems (1963), as well as a small file of correspondence of Baker relating to his participation on the Pulitzer Prize Fiction Jury in 1975. In addition, there is a phonograph record (in Russian) with a typed transcript in English of Radio Liberation programs about Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago, and the award of the Nobel Prize to him in 1958.
The organization of the Hemingway material in the collection reflects the order in which Baker kept and, presumably, used it.
The manuscripts found in draft form in the collection came to print in the following publications: Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1969), The Land of Rumblelow (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1963), A Year and a Day: Poems (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1963), Islands in the Stream (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970).
Baker donated his collection to Princeton in the early 1980s, after his retirement as Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton University. Many of the papers are copies of Hemingway correspondence which Baker acquired from various libraries, individuals, and other undisclosed sources. He also corresponded with friends, relatives, and associates of Hemingway requesting copies of their correspondence or personal reminiscences of Hemingway.
This collection was processed by Barbara Volz in 1992. The finding aid was written by Barbara Volz in 1992.
In 2022, restrictions on Ernest Hemingway materials where researchers were required to use surrogates were lifted as part of a restrictions review project.
No appraisal information is available.
People
Organization
Subject
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Author
- Barbara Volz
- Finding Aid Date
- 2005
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Single copies may be made for research purposes. No further duplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original. Inquiries regarding publishing material from the collection should be directed to Special Collections Public Services staff through the Ask Us! form. The library has no information on the status of literary rights in the collection and researchers are responsible for determining any questions of copyright.
Collection Inventory
Consists of copies (Xeroxes, photostats, typed transcripts) of letters by Ernest Hemingway, from about 1910 to his death in 1961, to approximately 250 different people, including family, friends, publishers, sportsmen, and writers. There are also occasional copies of replies to Hemingway and some original correspondence of Carlos Baker with the correspondents and others relating to the Hemingway letters. Baker compiled the copies from various sources. Many of the original letters are in Princeton University Library manuscript collections, while others are in different libraries or personal collections around the country. Some of the copies have notations indicating the source of the original letters; however, the location of many of the originals is unknown. Many of the letters have been published in Baker's Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters, 1917-1961 (1981).
Arranged alphabetically by correspondent.
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Consists of material compiled by Baker relating to all facets of Hemingway's life. Included is genealogical information, copies of additional Hemingway correspondence, printed matter, memorabilia, a few photographs, and correspondence and notes of Baker about Hemingway. Also present is a miscellaneous file (1899-1939) of Xerox copies of letters, printed matter, and other ephemera of and about Hemingway compiled by an unidentified collector.
Arranged chronologically.
Physical Description11 boxes
Consists of general files for the years 1800s-1961, including genealogy files, Oak Park High School, and works by Ernest Hemingway.
Arranged chronologically.
Physical Description9 boxes
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Consists of biographical files for the years 1899-1939.
Arranged chronologically.
Physical Description2 boxes
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Consists of a Xerox copy of the autograph and typed manuscript of the posthumously published Islands in the Stream (1970). The location of the original manuscript is unknown. Also present are transcripts and/or photostats of Hemingway's articles and stories printed in the Kansas City Star (1917-1918), The Toronto Star (1920-1924), and Esquire (1933-1936).
Not arranged according to any arrangement scheme.
Physical Description3 boxes
Incomplete Xerox of original manuscript: includes much of the holograph version of Part I, "Bimini;" the entire typescript of Part II, "The Sea-Main Book Two," published as "Cuba"; and some typescript fragments of Part III, "At Sea," which were not published. Parts missing: Book II, "Miami," pp. 680-907 of "Bimini," and Part III, "At Sea," entire published part.
Physical Description6 folders
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Consists of typed drafts (chapters 7-11), a final typed version (chapters 1-11), uncorrected proofs, and a blank dummy book with dust jacket for Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969), and two works unrelated to Baker's work on Hemingway, a typescript for a novel, The Land of Rumbelow (1963), and a typescript for A Year and a Day: Poems (1963). Included is a folder of correspondence generated while Baker served on the Pulitzer Prize jury in 1975.
Not arranged according to any arrangement scheme.
Physical Description5 boxes
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Consists of a few copies of magazines containing works by Hemingway– New Masses (1935, 1939), Look (1954, 1956), and Life (1952, 1960) which has serializations of The Old Man and the Sea and The Dangerous Summer–and many clippings, magazines, and journals, such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Playboy, and The Connecticut Review, with articles about Hemingway and his works.
This series is arranged into two subseries: Works by Ernest Hemingway, and Works about Ernest Hemingway.
Physical Description3 boxes
Consists of printed works of Ernest Hemingway in New Masses, Life, and Look.
Arranged by publication.
Physical Description1 box
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Consists of printed works about Ernest Hemingway in magazines as well as clippings.
Arranged by genre of material.
Physical Description2 boxes
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Consists of a scrapbook compiled by Baker of clippings and tearsheets of articles about Hemingway, his works and his death, by Mary Hemingway, A. E. Hotchner, and others. Also included are two marine navigational maps of the Florida Keys and the Straits of Florida (Cuba and the Bahamas), a phonograph record of Radio Liberation's programs, in Russian with a typed English translation, about Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago, and the award of the Nobel Prize to him in 1958.
Not arranged according to any arrangement scheme.
Physical Description1 box
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