Ernest Hemingway, novelist, is seen at his nation house in San Francisco de Paula close to Havana, Cuba on Aug. 21, 1950.

Associated Press

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Associated Press

Ernest Hemingway, novelist, is seen at his nation house in San Francisco de Paula close to Havana, Cuba on Aug. 21, 1950.

Associated Press

A couple of months after Ernest Hemingway and his spouse survived two airplane crashes in two days whereas on safari in Africa, he wrote a letter to his lawyer stuffed with grisly particulars about his accidents — with the bravado that marked each his novels and his life. Now, that letter has drawn 12 bids at public sale and in the end sold for $237,055.

Hemingway wrote the letter in April 1954. At the time, he defined to his legal professional, Alfred Rice, why he’d requested others to “give you the word” on his accidents from the crashes just a few months earlier, in January.

“Couldn’t write letters much on acc’t of right arm which was burned to the bone 3rd degree and it would cramp up on me (still does a little but all burns ok),” he wrote. He says his proper kidney ruptured and liver and spleen injured.

“I am weak from so much internal bleeding. Have been a good boy and tried to rest,” the letter learn.

Hemingway’s spouse, Mary, additionally suffered. “Mary had a big shock and her memory not too hot yet and it will take quite a time to sort things out,” he defined.

The couple had been sightseeing in Uganda when their Cessna “cracked up,” because the Associated Press reported on the time. Hemingway mentioned the pilot had dived to keep away from hitting a flying flock of ibises and, in consequence, had been compelled to land. The group camped in a single day within the distant jungle.

Then the following day their rescue airplane caught hearth, forcing the passengers and pilot to scramble out.

When the couple lastly emerged after a 170 mile vehicle trip, the AP reported that Mary was limping and Hemingway’s head and arm have been bandaged. But Hemingway was “carrying a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin” and “appeared to be in high spirits as he shrugged off the crashes.”

Likewise, within the letter to his lawyer Hemingway insisted “everything is fine here.”

He sprinkles the small print of his accidents amid extra pressing seeming issues, asking his lawyer to pay a invoice he by no means acquired, and mentioned he hoped “the dept or Bureau will understand” that his receipts for the journey had burned within the second crash. He was on task for Look Magazine.

“Tell the Dept. that I am more valuable to them alive than dead and at present am trying [to] stay alive and get fit to produce,” he quipped.

Hemingway delivered his biting wit in different excerpts, comparable to when he expressed annoyance with the retailer Abercrombie & Fitch for sending his looking weapons to the mistaken tackle in Nairobi, Kenya.

“I … had to shoot my first lion with a borrowed .256 Mannlicher which was so old it would come apart in my hands and had to be held together with tape and Scotch tape,” he complained wryly. “Their carelessness in shipping imperiled both my life and livelihood. “