Hemingway’s Stolen Suitcase

Ernest Hemingway is now widely regarded as one of America's best novels, although this was not always the case. He was a struggling writer who had yet to produce a piece of fiction in the early 1920s. Hemingway had moved to Paris with his first wife, Hadley Richardson, where he worked as a foreign correspondent during the day and wrote books at night.

In 1922, the 23-year-old journalist was assigned to a temporary job in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he appeared to be getting his big break. When an editor told Hemingway that he enjoyed his writing and wanted to see more of it, he urged his wife to pack his manuscripts and travel to Switzerland.

Since Hadley was not sure what her husband needed, she packed everything – manuscripts, notes, drafts, even the carbon copies. Almost every word of fiction that Ernest Hemingway had written up until that point was in that suitcase…and then the suitcase was stolen at the Paris train station. Hemingway lost several short stories and, most notably, the draft for his first novel – a story set in World War I which, for whatever reason, he never attempted to rewrite. What happened to the stolen luggage is unknown, but it remains a sort of Holy Grail for literary fans who hope it will be discovered one day in some dusty attic.