Yhe Old Man and the Sea is arguably the greatest 1shing story of all time. It ranks, in my opinion, above Herman Melville’s Moby-Dicb as the most marvelous piscatorial contribution of American literature. It is a timeless story— mythic, archetypal—but it is also of its time. Like the whaling industry of nineteenth-century America captured so poignantly in Moby-Dicb, the practice of Cuban commercial 1shermen setting out in small sailing skiIs for large bill1sh, using only hand tackle, is now largely a thing of the past with the advent of motorboats and modern 1shing equipment.1

Fishing has been a part of human experience for thousands of years and this story reminds us of its importance.2 Fart of the joy of reading Yhe Old Man and the Sea is the portrayal of the act of 1shing itself, as anyone who has held a hand line or a rod with a 1sh tugging on it will understand. Fishing, for those of us who practice it, is one of life’s great pleasures. I am forever grateful to my father for introducing me at a young age to the wonders of 1shing, as his father had done for him. The notion of passing on this knowledge from generation to generation, which is expressed so beautifully in the novella through the friendship of Santiago and the young boy, is an important aspect of the story.

How did Ernest Hemingway come to write this masterpiece? Yhe Old Man and the Sea had a long period of gestation. In 193G Hemingway described the essence of the story in an article he wrote for Zsguive maga>ine entitled “On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter,” included as the 1rst appendix to this book. It was a tale told to him by Carlos Gutiérre>, a Cuban 1sherman who taught my grandfather much about big-game 1shing (see 1gs. 1–3). Hemingway’s passion for deep-sea 1shing began much earlier, though, and it was through his

determination to master the sport that he acquired a wealth of detailed knowledge enabling him to write the novella many years later.

Hemingway 1rst became interested in deep-sea 1shing when he lived in Key West in the late 1920s, which is also when he began to visit Cuba. The personal 1shing logs he kept for more than ten years are preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Fresidential Library and Museum in Boston. They document everything from the numerous 1shing trips and catches he made to the weather conditions.3 In a log from 1932 there are notes from conversations with Carlos Gutiérre> that record fascinating tips about 1shing for marlin, as well as the 1sh’s behavior and characteristics (see 1g. 2). In the spring of 193&, upon returning from the safari that he immortali>ed in Gveen Hills of Rfvica, Hemingway custom-ordered his own deep-sea 1shing boat. The 9ilav, a forty-two-foot wooden motor cruiser from the Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, was to become his home on the sea (see 1gs. 3–S). By the following year my grandfather had caught more than one hundred marlin (see 1g. G) and was considered enough of an expert to write authoritative articles about the sport.& He was approached by scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Fhiladelphia and the American Museum of Natural History in New York to help gather information about the large game 1sh of the Gulf Stream— their classi1cations, life histories, diets, migratory patterns, and mating habits.S The ichthyologist Henry Fowler even recogni>ed his contributions by naming a new species of sculpin after him, 7eomevinthe hemingmayi.G One of the largest marlin that Ernest Hemingway ever fought, which was arguably nine hundred pounds, was hooked by his friend Henry Strater on the 9ilav in 193S. As Hemingway describes in a letter just after the event (appendix II), the 1sh was savagely attacked by sharks while they reeled it in and lost nearly half of its meat. It is clear that my grandfather drew on this real-life experience when he wrote Yhe Old Man and the Sea.‌‌‌

Hemingway had a great number of encounters with sharks and caught several large makos, one of which, hooked near Bimini, was 78G pounds. This Hemingway Library Edition includes as appendix III a previously unpublished list by my grandfather of principal sharks in Cuban waters (see 1g. 10). It

features his own observations about the diIerent species and how dangerous they become when they smell blood in the water. Hemingway even pioneered a technique for quickly landing large 1sh to avoid their being attacked by sharks. In the summer of 193S in Bimini, he was the 1rst angler to bring in a blue1n tuna unscathed by sharks.

A particularly exciting feature of this Hemingway Library Edition of Yhe Old

‌Man and the Sea is the inclusion of a previously unpublished short story by my grandfather (see appendix IV, 1g. 11), which Fatrick Hemingway has aptly entitled “Fursuit As Happiness.” The story makes a marvelous counterpart to Yhe Old Man and the Sea and gives a vivid sense of what it was like for Hemingway when he went deep-sea 1shing for marlin in those early days. Set in 1933, the story describes Hemingway’s passionate pursuit of a huge marlin while aboard the Rnita, a ship captained by my grandfather’s friend Josie Russell, who owned both the Rnita (see 1g. 1) and Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West. The story uses non1ctional characters like my grandfather and his longtime 1rst mate Carlos Gutiérre> (see 1gs. 1 and 3). It is di cult to say how much of it is based on fact and how much was embellished by the storyteller. Certain elements, such as the reference to outriggers, which were added to the 9ilav in April 193S, indicate that the story was written much later than 1933.7 Will Watson in his careful study of my grandfather’s 1shing logs notes how he became disappointed with the aging Gutiérre> in 193G, as his 1rst mate made more and more mistakes on the 9ilav resulting in many lost 1sh. These later experiences may have inspired Hemingway’s 1ctional account of Carlos’s error in the short story.8 Other details suggest the autobiographical nature of the story. The main character resides at the Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Hemingway 1rst stayed in Havana, and eats and drinks at the Floridita, which was one of his favorite hangouts. He also mentions his own record of catching seven white marlin in one day oI the north coast of Cuba, a record Hemingway held alone until 193G.9 The heroic notion of giving all of the meat away to the locals is a happy and generous way to ensure that none of the meat from their 1shing adventures went to waste. However, what happens in the story contrasts with the reality in‌‌

Bimini during the 1930s, when massive quantities of trophy 1sh meat went unused. It was a common occurrence that deeply bothered my grandfather.10

Hemingway periodically returned to the idea of writing Yhe Old Man and

the Sea. In a letter to his editor Max Ferkins in 1939, he mentions that it would make a great addition to a forthcoming book of short stories:

… And three very long ones I want to write now. One about Teruel called Fatigue. One about the old commercial 1sherman who fought the sword1sh all alone in his skiI for & days and four nights and the sharks 1nally eating it after he had it alongside and could not get it into the boat. That’s a wonderful story of the Cuban coast. I’m going out with old Carlos in his skiI so as to get it all right. Everything he does and everything he thinks in all that long 1ght with the boat out of sight of all the other boats all alone on the sea. It’s a great story if I can get it right. One that would make the book.11

No other record of that trip with Carlos Gutiérre> exists, but Hemingway’s personal collection of photographs, many taken by the author himself, show Cuban 1shermen at work in their small wooden sailing boats with typically two men aboard (see 1gs. 7 and 8). A photo of a Cuban 1shing boat with a large marlin nearly the length of the skiI gives a powerful sense of the heroic nature of these 1shermen and their quarry (see 1g. 9).12

‌The onsets of the Spanish Civil War (193G–1939) and World War II (1939– 19&S) led my grandfather to other writing projects, and it was not until the end of 19S0 that he was 1nally able to write the story of the old 1sherman. At that time he had completed the 1rst draft of a novel that would be posthumously published as Islands in the Stveam.13 Hemingway had envisioned this manuscript as the 1rst book of a major trilogy that he was composing on “The Sea, The Air and The Land.”1& As Hemingway wrote Yhe Old Man and the Sea, he thought it could serve as a coda to the sea book.1S By February 17, 19S1, he had completed the 1rst draft (2G,S31 words) of Yhe Old Man and the Sea at Finca Vigía. Freferring to rise early in the morning and work until lunchtime, he‌‌

claimed to have written 1,000 words per day for a sixteen-day period that month, much more than his usual output.1G

‌During this time the young, beautiful Adriana Ivancich, who was the model for the female heroine in Rcvoss the Riuev and Into the Yvees, was visiting the Finca with her mother, and she once again provided inspiration for my grandfather’s writing.17 Hemingway even suggested that Adriana illustrate the story. Her artwork, drawn from visits to the little 1shing village of Cojímar, was used for the cover of the book (see 1g. 1S). In a moment of generosity before the book was even published, Hemingway gave the original manuscript to Adriana’s brother Gianfranco Ivancich.18 Unfortunately, that manuscript has never been found. Hemingway’s 1nal typescript with quite a number of pencil corrections in the author’s hand is preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Fresidential Library and Museum. It illustrates some of the last editorial changes that Hemingway made to Yhe Old Man and the Sea. For the most part, these changes are minor additions that clarify or reinforce his existing statements. For example, in the 1rst paragraph of page 1, he adds the words “now de1nitely and 1nally” before “salao, which is the worst form of unlucky,” and he makes clear that it was the boy’s parents who sent him to work on a boat other than Santiago’s (see 1g. 12). On page 9G of the typescript he adds an evocative description of how the shark sinks into the sea (1g. 13). Some forty- four emendations are included in appendix V, which represent nearly all of the changes that were made by the author at this late stage. The 1nal text as it was published varies very little from this typescript.19‌‌

After sharing the completed manuscript with his wife, Mary; Charles

‌Scribner; and several friends, including the movie producer Leland Hayward, Hemingway decided that it would be best published as a novella. The story, at the time of its publication, also appeared as a single issue of Life maga>ine on September 1, 19S2 (see 1g. 1&). In a comment to the editors of Life, Hemingway wrote that he was excited so many people who could not aIord to buy the book would be able to read the story in the maga>ine. Such accessibility, he wrote, made him happier than if he had received the Nobel Fri>e, a rather brash, faux denial of his interest in this greatest of accolades.20 The novella was immensely

‌successful from the moment of its publication. The 1ve-million-copy run in Life sold out within two days and the book itself, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons, went straight to the 7em Yovb Yimes bestseller list, where it remained for twenty-six weeks. Among the many glowing reviews, William Faulkner wrote: “His best. Time may show it to be the best single piece of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries.”21

During this time, my grandfather wrote to the noted art historian Bernard Berenson: “Then there is the other secret. There isn’t any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is the old man. The boy is the boy and the 1sh is the 1sh. The sharks are all sharks, no better and no worse.”22 In truth and as generations of scholars have shown, Yhe Old Man and the Sea certainly has more symbolism than most of Hemingway’s stories.23 There is much that lies beneath the surface of the deceptively simple language: like the dignity of an iceberg, seven-eighths of its mass lies beneath the water, as my grandfather was fond of saying.2&‌‌

In 19S3 Hemingway received the Fulit>er Fri>e for Yhe Old Man and the Sea, and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Fri>e in Literature, the citation of which mentions Yhe Old Man and the Sea as an important work.

This Hemingway Library Edition includes my grandfather’s Nobel Fri>e acceptance speech (appendix VI). In an early draft, Hemingway joked about the source of Nobel’s money—dynamite—and in a later draft he soberly wrote: “There is no lonelier man than the writer when he is writing except the suicide. Nor is there any happier, nor more exhausted man when he has written well.”2S The 1nal acceptance speech, pared down to its essence, poignantly echoes the narrative of the novella: “It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.” Yhe Old Man and the Sea was the last major work of 1ction that my grandfather would complete in his lifetime, and it remains among his very best.

During the summer of 2019, I went hiking with my family to a remote cave on the eastern shore of Crete. We harvested salt from crevices in the rocks along the coast and swam in the cool, clear water of the Aegean Sea. While snorkeling amid schools of colorful 1sh on the edge of a shelf that dropped more than a hundred feet, I came face-to-face with two small tuna that appeared out of the

great blue abyss. I thought about Yhe Old Man and the Sea as I walked back across the barren, rugged landscape. The sun was high and the wind was blowing hard from the south. I made my own path along the bright red earth between sharp wind-etched, low-lying stones and patches of purple Rowering thyme, their gnarled roots clinging to the surface. Suddenly a Cretan wild hare bounded from a nearby bush, startling me. I stopped and watched him tear oI for about sixty yards before disappearing into the landscape. Moments later as I continued on my way, a covey of partridges shot out with the wind, their Ruttering wings making a great whirring noise next to me. I thought again of Yhe Old Man and the Sea and how Santiago is able to read the sea, which to the untrained eye looks vast and undiIerentiated. He understands all its signs—from the shape of the clouds in the sky to the signi1cance of birds chasing schools of small 1sh. Hemingway’s prose and its clear descriptive details bring the Gulf Stream to life. When you read the story you too will come to understand a remarkable ecosystem as it existed not long ago, and you will see it through the eyes of a 1sherman with a profound respect for the sea.

Seán Hemingway