Commentary On Editing
Ernest Hemingway worked on the manuscript of A Moveable Feast during his later years, rewriting several key passages. He had prepared a final draft before he died. After his death, his fourth wife Mary, in her capacity as Hemingway's literary executor, edited the manuscript.
Literary scholar Gerry Brenner from the University of Montana documented her edits and questioned their validity in his 1982 paper, "Are We Going to Hemingway's Feast?". He concluded that some edits were misguided, and others derived from questionable motives. He suggested the changes appeared to contradict Mary's stated policy for her role as executor, which had been a hands-off approach. Brenner and other researchers have examined the collection of Ernest Hemingway's personal papers, which were opened to the public in 1979 with the completion of the John F. Kennedy Library, where they are held in Boston. Included are Hemingway's notes and initial drafts of A Moveable Feast. Brenner indicates that Mary changed the order of the chapters in Hemingway's final draft, apparently to "preserve chronology". Brenner notes the change interrupted the series of juxtaposed character sketches of such individuals as Sylvia Beach (owner of the bookstore Shakespeare and Company) and Gertrude Stein. Additionally, Brenner points out that one chapter, titled "Birth of a New School", which Hemingway had dropped in his draft, was re-inserted by Mary. Brenner alleges the most serious edit was deleting Hemingway's lengthy apology to Hadley, his first wife. This apology appeared in various forms in every draft of the book. Brenner suggests that Mary deleted it because it impugned her own role as wife.
In contrast, A.E. Hotchner has said that he received a near final draft of A Moveable Feast and the version that Mary Hemingway published is essentially the draft which he had read in 1957. Therefore, the original publication is the version Hemingway intended and Mary Hemingway did not revise or add chapters. He believed it represented Ernest's intentions.
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