Shakespeare References in Papa Hemingway

A. E. Hotchner’s Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir contains a few Shakespeare references. This first is in a line the author spoke to Ernest Hemingway: “‘John O’Hara’s review in The New York Times called you the greatest writer since Shakespeare,’ I told him” (p. 69). The second is in something that Hemingway said of Luis Miguel Dominguin: “‘At his peak he’s a combination of Don Juan and Hamlet, but now looked beat up and drained’” (p. 138). The third comes while Ernest Hemingway is speaking of his short story “The Killers”: “‘Mr. Gene Tunney, the Shakespearean pugilist, once asked me if the Swede of the story wasn’t actually Carl Andreson,’ Ernest said” (p. 163). The last reference is to The Merchant Of Venice. Hotchner writes, “The owner, whom Ernest had known since his first days in Madrid, came to make peace, but Ernest turned on him too and accused him of having turned Shylock that summer when Ernest and I had tracked down Rupert Belville at the Callejon, drunken almost to the point of expiration” (p. 259).

Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir was published in 1966.