This is the life story of the first Mrs. Ernest Hemingway, Hadley Richardson Hemingway Mowrer. This book is out of print, but I got it used on Amazon. Hadley, to me, is the most interesting of Hemingway's 4 wives because she inspired my favorite book of all time, A Moveable Feast.

The book at hand, is written by a woman who actually did a series of in-person interviews with Hadley in the 1970's, looking back on her time with Ernest.

Hadley is a remarkable woman, always loving Ernest until the end of her life. She remarried and had a happy marriage for many years.

In fact, Hadley was married to two Pulitzer Prize winners, Ernest and Paul Mowrer, who won the very first Pulitzer Prize for Journalism.

She had no bitterness over the early divorce from Ernest and was grateful to Ernest all her life for giving her the "keys to the world."

This is astonishing because her marriage broke up because of another woman, professing to be Hadley's best friend before she made her play for Ernest and broke them up.

Hers was a sheltered life until she was in her late 20s. When her mother died, she was finally free to have a life. She met Ernest (he was 8 years younger than her) and it was a whirlwind romance. He took her to Paris and they met the literary crowd that included Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound, among others. They became part of the literary set.

She learned to ski in Austria and went to the bullfights in Pamplona, where a matador dedicated a bull to her.

She had tremendous faith in the young writer and that gave him faith in himself. To understand Ernest Hemingway, the reader must read A Moveable Feast. To understand the relationship with Hadley, this is essential.

To the end of his life, Ernest Hemingway always loved and cherished his first wife more than any other woman in his life. Because of this love, their son, Jack (a.k.a. Bumby) was able to thrive and have a good life.

anyone who wants to learn more about The Paris Wife, The first Mrs Hemingway.

reading her opinions about things.

does a good job of not editorializing and expressing her own opinion about Ernest's behavior. I appreciated that.

this is the only writer, that I know of, who actually bothered to talk to Hadley Richardson Hemingway, herself.

If you haven't read A Moveable Feast, you probably won't appreciate this book nearly as much. I would say read that book, even if you read no other book by Ernest Hemingway.

In my opinion (and I've read most of his work), it's his true masterpiece.

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Created May 21, 2014 at 11:46am • Submit your own review...