Story Written by 10-year-old Ernest Hemingway Discovered

Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the finest writers of modern times and books of his such as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea are considered modern classics. Hemingway fans will be pleased to learn that a story written by the writer at the age of 10 has been discovered, and tells an imaginary story of traveling through Ireland and Scotland.

As The Telegraph reports, the old brown notebook which contains the 14-page story was discovered ziploc freezer bag inside an ammunition box that now belongs to family friends in an archive that is located in Key West, near where the writer lived in the 30’s.

The story begins with Hemingway leaving his childhood home in Illinois by train, then crossing the Atlantic ocean and traveling to Ireland and Scotland. The story takes the form of a diary, along with letters to his parents that detail landmarks. At first it was thought the story was a real account of a trip he took, but Sandra Spanier, professor of English and general editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, quickly realised he never came to Europe until he was older.

“He clearly had done his homework about the geography of this account,” she said. “It is quite an intelligent piece of work but clearly he was making it up.” She went on to say that his writing shows the same “precision” that would define his later work.

“Hemingway later said that his method was to invent from experience and he often placed his characters in absolutely realistically described landscapes,” she said. “I find it very interesting that at the age of 10 he is already checking his maps and finding these local landmarks. For a kid in Oak Park, Illinois, it is rather sophisticated and shows his interest in getting the details right.”

The story was discovered in May of this year when Brewster Chamberlin, a local author and historian, was cataloguing the archive. The archive is currently controlled by the Bruce family, specifically Benjamin “Dink” Bruce whose father worked for Hemingway.