New Hemingway Short Story Discovered: But You Won't Get to Read It

Posted on September 27, 2004

A new Ernest Hemingway short story has been discovered. It is about bullfighting. USA Today reports that a newly discovered handwritten letter and short story by Hemingway will be auctioned in December, but custodians of his estate have not granted permission for the works to be published. The two-page letter and five-page story, based on an incident at a bullfighting ring and written in 1924, were discovered last year by the son of Donald Ogden Stewart, a writer and contemporary of Hemingway's. Christie's auction house in New York announced that it will auction off the letters and story on December 16th. The items are expected to sell in the range of between $12,000 to $18,000.

The story, entitled "My Life in the Bull Ring With Donald Ogden Stewart," was inspired by a real incident in 1924, when Hemingway's friend Stewart encountered a bull in Pamplona, Spain. The story is said to be comical and lighthearted, but apparently Stewart (a humorist himself) found the story to be less than amusing. But until the appropriate permissions are obtained, the story cannot be published -- which is a real shame.