University Libraries

University Libraries hosts Hemingway pop-up exhibit June 16

Optional tour of Pattee Library and Paterno Library available with alumni registration for We Are Weekend events

At 10 years old, Ernest Hemingway wrote this untitled story, believed to be his earliest-known surviving work of fiction. This booklet is among the items in the Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway in Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collections Library. Credit: Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. Creative Commons

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State University Libraries will hold a pop-up exhibit displaying several Ernest Hemingway artifacts from the Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway from noon to 4 p.m. Friday, June 16, in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library’s Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library, on Penn State’s University Park campus. The pop-up exhibit is free and open to the public.

In addition, a limited number of seats remain for individuals who register for the Penn State Alumni Association’s We Are Weekend to attend a short program about the Toby and Betty Bruce Collection followed by a tour Pattee Library and Paterno Library. Registration and additional details are available online.

The University Libraries’ acquisition of the Bruce Collection, which places Penn State in the top tier of repositories of Ernest Hemingway scholarly materials, includes handwritten notes and letters, private family photographs, and Hemingway’s first story written in childhood.

The pop-up exhibit follows a March 2023 Library Discovery Hour virtual event presented by University Libraries employees, titled “From Key West to Penn State – the Journey of the Toby and Betty Bruce collection of Ernest Hemingway,” which is available for streaming online.

Hemingway, on an October 1958 road trip from Key West to Idaho with longtime friends Toby and Betty Bruce, enjoyed the view from Galena Summit, about 30 miles from Ketchum, Idaho, where he would buy a house in 1959.   Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

An American Red Cross volunteer ambulance driver in WWI, Hemingway (center), smiles from a trench, flanked by Italian soldiers.  He was severely wounded by an Austrian trench mortar in July 1918 just days after this photo was taken.   Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

On a piece of cardboard, Hemingway listed possible titles for his now-classic 1936 story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Rejected titles include “Than a Dead Lion,” “The Manner of the Accident,” “Fear’s End” and “The Tragic Safari.” Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

Page in Hemingway’s 1926 notebook, with the title of a novel he planned but never wrote (“A New Slain Knight”) and his penciled notation: “I must finish The Sun Also Rises and then want to write short stories for four or five months.” His first major novel, “The Sun Also Rises,” was published that year. Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

The Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway contains the pith helmet from Abercrombie and Fitch that Hemingway wore on a 1933-34 African safari.    Credit: Photo provided. All Rights Reserved.

Non-photo artifacts in the collection include a check to the Hotel Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Hemingway stayed on his frequent visits to Havana, Cuba, throughout the 1930s.   Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

The collection also includes a ticket stub from a July 7, 1931, bullfight at Plaza de Toros de Pamplona, in Spain. Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

Benjamin C. “Dink” Bruce, son of Toby and Betty and the custodian of the Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway after their passing, sporting Hemingway’s World War I military cap. Credit: Photo by Sandra Spanier. All Rights Reserved.

Hemingway, on an October 1958 road trip from Key West to Idaho with longtime friends Toby and Betty Bruce, enjoyed the view from Galena Summit, about 30 miles from Ketchum, Idaho, where he would buy a house in 1959.   Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

An American Red Cross volunteer ambulance driver in WWI, Hemingway (center), smiles from a trench, flanked by Italian soldiers.  He was severely wounded by an Austrian trench mortar in July 1918 just days after this photo was taken.   Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

On a piece of cardboard, Hemingway listed possible titles for his now-classic 1936 story “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Rejected titles include “Than a Dead Lion,” “The Manner of the Accident,” “Fear’s End” and “The Tragic Safari.” Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

Page in Hemingway’s 1926 notebook, with the title of a novel he planned but never wrote (“A New Slain Knight”) and his penciled notation: “I must finish The Sun Also Rises and then want to write short stories for four or five months.” His first major novel, “The Sun Also Rises,” was published that year. Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

The Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway contains the pith helmet from Abercrombie and Fitch that Hemingway wore on a 1933-34 African safari.    Credit: Photo provided. All Rights Reserved.

Non-photo artifacts in the collection include a check to the Hotel Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Hemingway stayed on his frequent visits to Havana, Cuba, throughout the 1930s.   Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

The collection also includes a ticket stub from a July 7, 1931, bullfight at Plaza de Toros de Pamplona, in Spain. Credit: Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, Penn State University Libraries / Penn State. All Rights Reserved.

Benjamin C. “Dink” Bruce, son of Toby and Betty and the custodian of the Toby and Betty Bruce Collection of Ernest Hemingway after their passing, sporting Hemingway’s World War I military cap. Credit: Photo by Sandra Spanier. All Rights Reserved.

Last Updated June 13, 2023

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