Description:

Hemingway Ernest

Ernest Hemingway Signed Envelope, PSA/DNA Certified & Encapsulated, 5 Months before Suicide

 

An Air mail envelope inscribed overall and signed by American novelist Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) as "E. Hemingway" in the return address section. Also inscribed with 24 additional words, letters, and numbers as "P.O. Box 555 / Ketchum, Idaho / Miss Kaye Halle / 3001 Dent Place N.W. / Washington 7 D.C. / Personal." Postmarked from Ketchum, Idaho on February 25, 1961. A minor tear running through the "E" of "E. Hemingway" (a result of the original letter-opening) mentioned just for accuracy. Else clean, crisp, and near fine. Graded as NM-MT 8. The envelope measures 6.5" x 3.75" while the slab measures 10" x 6.5".

 

Hemingway's correspondent Katherine "Kay" Halle (1903-1997) was a female journalist, just like Hemingway's two ex-wives, Pauline Pfeiffer and Martha Gelhorn. Halle, an independently wealthy Midwesterner, radio broadcast and reported from Cleveland, Washington, D.C., and London. Halle befriended both the Churchill and Kennedy families, and had long-standing ties with the Democratic Party.

 

Just a month earlier in January 1961, Halle, as a member of John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Committee, had conceived of the idea of a scrapbook of congratulatory wishes from America's leading intellectuals to be presented to the new president. Hemingway had been approached and personally invited to attend JFK's inauguration, but he had been hospitalized and could not attend. The celebrated author of For Whom the Bell Tolls did send a note, however, and it joined messages from over 180 American writers, artists, designers, and scientists.

 

Hemingway had been admitted to the Mayo Clinic under an assumed name in late November 1960. Ostensibly, Hemingway was sent to Minnesota for treatment of his hypertension. In reality, however, he was there to receive cutting-edge medical treatment to combat depression, paranoia, and suicidal ideation. Hemingway underwent more than a dozen electroconvulsive therapy sessions and was prescribed heavy duty medication. He was discharged from the clinic on January 22, 1961, more than five weeks after his admission.

 

This envelope, then, dates from Hemingway's immediate post-clinic period. The aggressive psychiatric treatment that Hemingway received at the Mayo Clinic had not helped his depression. Indeed, there was even evidence that it had further damaged Hemingway's mental ability, affecting his memory and lucidity. Hemingway's mental state further deteriorated that winter and spring. He returned to the Mayo Clinic in late April, was released in late June, and killed himself just two days after his homecoming to Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2, 1961.

 

Hemingway would be dead within five months of penning this envelope, making it one of the last things that he wrote to a friend and fellow writer. The envelope, neatly inscribed in Hemingway's plain script, represents his brave struggle with mental illness.

 

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