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  • Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow

  • The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage
  • By: Ruth A. Hawkins
  • Narrated by: Talmadge Ragan
  • Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins

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Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow

By: Ruth A. Hawkins
Narrated by: Talmadge Ragan
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Publisher's Summary

It was the glittering intellectual world of 1920s Paris expatriates in which Pauline Pfeiffer, a writer for Vogue, met Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley among a circle of friends that included Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and Dorothy Parker. Pauline grew close to Hadley but eventually forged a stronger bond with Hemingway himself; with her stylish looks and dedication to Hemingway's writing, Pauline became the source of "unbelievable happiness" for Hemingway and, by 1927, his second wife. Pauline was her husband's best editor and critic, and her wealthy family provided moral and financial support, including the conversion of an old barn to a dedicated writing studio at the family home in Piggott, Arkansas. The marriage lasted 13 years, some of Hemingway's most productive, and the couple had two children. But the "unbelievable happiness" met with "final sorrow", as Hemingway wrote, and Pauline would be the second of Hemingway's four wives. Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow paints a full picture of Pauline and the role she played in Ernest Hemingway's becoming one of our greatest literary figures.

The book is published by The University of Arkansas Press.

©2012 The University of Arkansas Press (P)2017 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic Reviews

"A major scholarly accomplishment - authoritative, thoroughly researched, pioneering, and ably written...a must for Hemingway scholars, teachers, and aficionados." (Anne Marie Candido in Arkansas Historical Quarterly)
"A significant contribution to setting the record straight" ( Publishers Weekly)
"A riveting portrait of a marriage, and a fascinating biography of Pauline Pfeiffer...introduces us to a new heroine in the Hemingway saga." (Mary Dearborn, author of Mailer: A Biography)

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