Newsday first reported the news this week of The Raab Collection’s discovery of two personal, unpublished letters of Ernest Hemingway. Written to American student Mary Lou Firle in 1955 after she met the famous author in Cuba, the letters touch upon compelling topics–writing, fishing, travel, death, and the afterlife–and were saved by the recipient all her life.
“They are charming letters, they show a side of Hemingway people don’t necessarily know about. It shows his less familiar face,” Penn State professor Sandra Spanier told Newsday. “These letters show he could be very generous and kind to young people who sought him out.”
In an audio interview recorded earlier this year, Nathan Raab spoke to Mary Lou’s husband Morris about that fateful trip to Cuba and his wife’s lifelong affinity for Hemingway:
While in Cuba, Mary Lou had been determined to get Hemingway to sign a book for her, and she succeeded. Hemingway inscribed and signed a copy of A Farewell to Arms to her, “with all best wishes, and much affection from her friend, Ernest Hemingway. Finca Vigia, San Francisco de Paula, 3 February 1955.” His letters to her followed later that year, in July and October.
