Pauline Pfeiffer and Hadley Richardson Hemingway

Abstract

In spring, 1925, when Hemingway and Fitzgerald met, the famous Scott found himself enthusiastically talking to Ernest about his becoming a Scribner author.¹ Once that idea embedded itself in Hemingway’smind, his exuberance about In Our Time’sbeing published by Liveright began to fade. Although he did not mention breaking his three-book contract with the latter company, Ernest knew that Liveright had the option on his second novel only if they bought it; if they didn’t want that manuscript, the contract would be invalid. Hemingway was sure the manuscript he was now calling The Sun Also Rises would be a big novel (at least on the comparatively modest scale he was imagining); he knew that he did not want that book to be the second one Liveright would see. For their advance of $200 for In Our Time, the company hardly deserved his first serious novel.