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The Torrents of Spring (1926), a hasty burlesque of Sherwood Anderson's books, was written, so tradition has it, at the instigation of F. Scott Fitzgerald, to end Hemingway's relations with his publisher, Horace Liveright. Plot was that Liveright, annoyed at the ribbing of his star author, Sherwood Anderson, would refuse the manuscript, thus leaving Hemingway free to join Friend Fitzgerald at Scribners. At any rate, so it turned out. Scribners took the dud Torrents of Spring, thus securing a bestseller, The Sun Also Rises, as well as all Hemingway's subsequent books. From then on, Author Hemingway was sitting pretty. In spite of the failure of Death in the Afternoon and Green Hills of Africa, his eight books published in the U. S. have sold the respectable total of 280,000 copies.
The Man. Tall, heavily-built, dark-skinned and square-featured, Hemingway is still a bullfight aficionado (fan), likes also big-game fishing, hunting, plays tennis regularly to keep his weight down. Divorced (1926) from his first wife, he was remarried a year later to Pauline Pfeiffer, then a Paris fashion writer for Vogue, has had by her two sons, Patrick and Gregory Hancock. Since 1930, he has made his home at Key West, living there in a thick-walled, Spanish-built house, its garden somewhat incongruously inhabited by peacocks. His 30-ft. launch El Pilar he uses for casual pleasure jaunts, trips to Cuba (90 miles away)—and fishing.
So assiduously has Hemingway followed this favorite sport that he was elected (November 1935) vice president of the Salt Water Anglers of America, leading big-game fishermen's association; so earnestly that he now sends odd catches to Philadelphia's Academy of Natural Sciences (where his good friend, Henry Weed Fowler, is chief ichthyologist). He is proud that a species of rosefish has been named Neomerinthe hemingwayi in his honor. His business trips are chiefly to Manhattan, where, shying away from tea-fighting literary circles, he sees only Scribners' Editor Max Perkins (whose decorous office framed the Hemingway-Max Eastman brawl of last August), old friends Robert Benchley, Waldo Peirce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, few others. Contributor of a monthly page to Esquire up to a couple of years ago, it is said he is soon to become a regular correspondent of the nearly-nascent Esquire-owned magazine Ken (TIME, Sept. 20). A Roman Catholic, he is also very superstitious: he never travels on Friday, touches wood constantly, is upset if a black cat crosses his path. Writing (in longhand), he works regular hours, revises conscientiously.