"Hemingway described his artistic method as inventing from experience. In his letters we live in the country, meet the people, track the relationships, and witness events unfold that later he would forge into fiction. In a postscript to the 11 September 1925 letter to his mother telling of his novel in progress, Hemingway added a note about his wife: Hadley is better looking and huskier than ever. She's had her hair cut like a boys as all the chic...

A first publication of the acclaimed writer's personal correspondences includes whimsical teenage reports of her 1880s Red Cloud life, letters written during her early journalism years, and the 1940s exchanges penned in observation of World War II and her own struggles with aging.--Publisher description.

"An autobiography through the previously unpublished letters of the renowned author of Invisible Man, with insights into the riddle of American identity, the writer's craft, and his own life and work. Over six decades (1933 to 1993), Ralph Ellison's extensive and revealing correspondence remarkably details his aspirations and anxieties, confidence and uncertainties throughout his personal and professional life. From early notes to his mother, as...