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Walter Houk 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
Walter Houk, an officer of the American Embassy in Havana, Cuba, from 1949 to 1952, married Juanita Jensen, another embassy employee and part-time secretary to writer Ernest Hemingway, in Havana in 1952, with the Hemingways holding the wedding reception at their estate, Finca Vigía. It was through his future wife that Houk first became friends with both Ernest and Mary Hemingway. The couple were frequent visitors at the Finca, used the library, swam in the pool, stayed for lunch or dinner, went fishing on the Pilar, and drank daiquiris with Papa at the Floridita bar.
The collection is devoted to Ernest Hemingway in Cuba, where he lived a third of his life. It consists of manuscripts, correspondence, stenography notebooks, photographs, maps of Cuba at mid-century, and memorabilia associated with the Houks' years in Havana, documenting their friendship and interaction with the author. The material, from both the Houks' contributions, provides a robust view of the writer when producing his last major works, Across the River and into the Trees (1950) and The Old Man and the Sea(1952). Their story is told in Houk's essays over the years from the perspective of one who was there and in his manuscript memoir Havana and Hemingway, and "Nita" Jensen's half includes anecdotes and her prized letters from Ernest and Mary Hemingway, along with original shorthand notebooks and typed transcriptions of Hemingway's dictated letters (1949, in the year or so before the couple met, and 1952). Also included are photographs, described in detail by Houk, of major Hemingway landmarks in Cuba taken by his friend David Nuffer in December 2004.
The collection was a gift to the Manuscripts Division by Walter Houk in November 2010 (AM2011-54).
For preservation reasons, original analog and digital media may not be read or played back in the reading room. Users may visually inspect physical media but may not remove it from its enclosure. All analog audiovisual media must be digitized to preservation-quality standards prior to use. Audiovisual digitization requests are processed by an approved third-party vendor. Please note, the transfer time required can be as little as several weeks to as long as several months and there may be financial costs associated with the process. Requests should be directed through the Ask Us Form.
This collection was processed by John Delaney in November 2010. Finding aid written by John Delaney in November 2010.
In 2022, restrictions on Ernest Hemingway letters where researchers were required to use surrogates were lifted as part of a restrictions review project.
No appraisal information is available.
People
Subject
Place
- Publisher
- Manuscripts Division
- Finding Aid Date
- 2010
- Access Restrictions
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The collection is open for research.
- Use Restrictions
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Collection Inventory
Consists of Houk manuscripts related to the life and work of author Ernest Hemingway.
Organized by format: memoir, journal, essays.
Physical Description2 boxes
Book-length typed manuscript recording Houk's experiences in Havana, Cuba, 1949-1952, as a trained U.S. Foreign Service employee and friend of Ernest and Mary Hemingway, who also married Hemingway's former stenographer, Juanita Jensen, at the end of that period. Consists of three sections. "Cuba in Hemingway's Time" explores the island of Cuba and the city of Havana, including Hemingway's haunts and home, Finca Vigía, and fishing in the Gulf Stream aboard Hemingway's boat, the Pilar. The second section, "Life at the Finca," includes anecdotes of the Hemingways at home by Juanita Jensen and Houk, an account of their Finca wedding reception (April 30, 1952), Juanita's shorthand recording of Hemingway's connection with a clandestine West Indies invasion attempt for a book by writer Thomas Heggen. The last section, "Log and Epilogue," consists of excerpts from Houk's Havana journal and an account, "Africa, an Accidental Pilgrimage," on the Victoria Nile in Uganda at Murchison Falls, site of Hemingway's first airplane crash, taken from Houk's 1970 travel journal. A "Coda" of additional Hemingway-related memories concludes the work. Illustrated with copies of both color and black-and-white photographs from the early 1950s. 3-ring binder, 242 pp.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of small binders of Houk's additional insights, second thoughts, and later information about Hemingway and Cuba, amounting to 64 essays dated from August 2005 through September 24, 2010.
Physical Description5 folders
Typed transcriptions of oral anecdotes given by Juanita Houk in the late 1980s, with excerpts from Walter Houk's 1950-1952 Havana journal.
Physical Description1 folder
Revised text of a work published in North Dakota Quarterly (2006). Houk writes about the islands, waters, boats, patrols, and the "At Sea" part of Hemingway's novel Islands in the Stream. Includes transcriptions of Hemingway's log (1942-1943) aboard the Pilar. In pocket: large NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) nautical chart (1988) of "Straits of Florida and Approaches." 3-ring binder, 131 pp. Note: this enlarged version of the published work contains items omitted from it: one of four detailed maps, two appendices, and photos of U-boats active during Hemingway's north coast patrols.
Physical Description1 folder
This is Houk's commentary on an intended chapter, "Man of War," from Ambasador Ellis O. Briggs's memoir Proud Servant, that was omitted from the version published in 1998 by Kent State University Press. Foreign Service Officer Briggs knew Hemingway during World War II years in Cuba. Included is a copy of the Ellis chapter. TMs, 5 pp. (plus 24 pp. of the Ellis chapter).
Physical Description1 folder
Houk reconstucts a short story that lies embedded in Hemingway's novel Across the River and into the Trees. TMs, 6 pp. (plus the 12 pp. of the story).
Physical Description1 folder
In this two-part essay Houk deals with Hemingway and his encounters with an American writer and two film makers who came to Havana in 1948 seeking material from two Cuban revolutionary episodes, one involving terrorism, one an attempt to export revolution and bring about a regime change.
Physical Description1 folder
This is Houk's critique of the Cuba pages in the last volume (The Final Years) of Michael Reynold's biography of Ernest Hemingway: his errors, omissions, and aberrant nuances. TMs, 17 pp.
Physical Description1 folder
This Houk essay was published under the title "Lessons from Hemingway's Cuban Biographer," in the spring-summer 2001 issue of North Dakota Quartlery. TMs, 30 pp.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of two three-ring binders of correspondence and related memorabilia of Walter and Juanita Houk.
Organized into two 2 groups of material: Hemingway correspondence and memorabilia, Nuffer correspondence and reports.
Physical Description2 boxes
3-ring binder. Consists of 5 parts: 1) Ernest Hemingway Letters (1949-1950), 2) Mary Hemingway Letters (1950-1970), 3) Juanita Jensen Houk Letters and Memorabilia (1946-1964, 1989), 4) Nine Hemingway Christmas Cards (1949-1970), 5) Memorabilia from Mid-Century Cuba (1933-1952). All of the items are introduced, commented on, and/or annotated by Houk. Among the memorabilia are a 1949 Floridita Bar folder with an in-house photograph of Mary Hemingway and Juanita Jensen, a 1933 Sloppy Joe's Bar manual and map, several 1950s Havana newspaper clippings of Hemingway marlin tournament activities, and a late-1940s Esso road map of Cuba.
Physical Description1 box
3-ring binder. Consists of two decades of letters, reports, and interviews exchanged by Hemingway observers Houk and David Nuffer.
Physical Description1 box
Consists of Juanita Houk's original stenographer's notebooks (with typed transcriptions), used by her to take dictation of letters by Ernest Hemingway and to record narrations by James Kendrick.
Organized into two groups of notebooks/transcriptions: Hemingway and Kendrick.
Physical Description2 boxes
Consists of 3 stenographer's shorthand notebooks, recording Hemingway's letters, 1949 and 1952. With 12 loose pages.
Physical Description1 folder
3-ring binder. Two sections: 1) letters and other items transcribed in 1989 from her shorthand notebooks by Juanita Jensen Houk; 2) correspondence (1963-1984) of Juanita Houk and Hemingway biographer Carlos Baker.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of two stenographer's shorthand notebooks of narrations by James Kendrick that were intended as background for a book by Thomas Hegen on the Caribbean Legion's attempt to invade the Domincan Republic in 1947. Kendrick was an instructor at the National University in Havana; Hegen (1918-1949) was author of Mister Roberts.
Physical Description1 folder
3-ring binder. Consists of transcriptions made in 1990 of the two 1948 stenographer's notebooks. Included are a 1948 letter to Juanita Jensen by Thomas Heggen accompanying his payment for her work, and several newspaper clippings dealing with his sudden death the following year.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of photographs of the Hemingways and related people and places in Cuba taken by Walter Houk and David Nuffer.
Arranged in groups: Houk b/w, Houk color, Nuffer.
Physical Description1 box
Consists of ten photographs (copies) of mid-century Cuba scenes, showing Ernest and Mary Hemingway, Juanita Jensen, and others. All are described by Houk.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of twenty Houk Kodachrome slides with accompanying color prints, showing Ernest Hemingway and others, as well as 1950s Cuba scenes. All are described by Houk.
Physical Description1 folder
3-ring binder. Consists of color photographs (copies) of Havana and Hemingway haunts taken in December 2004 by David Nuffer. Houk had created the itinerary for Nuffer's trip. All of the photographs are described by Houk.
Physical Description1 folder
Consists of published nautical charts and printed material.
Arranged by format.
Physical Description1 box
Consists of four nautical charts and one aeronautical chart of "Hemingway" islands: Cayo Verde to Cabo Lucrecia, Cayo Lavela to Cayo Verde (section), Boca de Sagua La Grande to Cayo Francés, Crooked Island Passage to Punta de Maisí, and a 1987 NOAA aeronautical chart of Cuba.
Physical Description1 folder
Contains the January 1952 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine containing "Girl at Sea," an article by Mary Hemingway about her marlin fishing aboard the Pilar, and clippings from the Havana newspaper Avance, for March 10, 1952, reporting the Batista coup d'etat.
Physical Description2 folders