Ernest Hemingway's Museum

Ernest Hemingway's house in Key West

 

It was on the advice of John Dos Passos, a fellow member of the “Lost Generation” of ex patriate artists and writers populating Paris during the 1920s, that Hemingway was first prompted to visit Key West. Hemingway did not go directly to South Florida from Paris, but rather arrived through Havana, Cuba—a city and country that would prove to be critically important in Hemingway’s later personal and professional life. Upon his arrival in Key West in April 1928, the first order of business was to locate the new Ford Roadster that Pauline Hemingway's wealthy Uncle Gus had so generously purchased for the newlywed couple. Because the car had been delayed in transit, the Ford dealership insisted that they take up residence in an apartment located above the showroom on Simonton Street. Ernest and Pauline accepted the offer, and he resumed work on a war story he had started on the ocean passage to Key West. Hemingway continued his Paris habits of writing during the early mornings, and taking time to explore his surroundings in the afternoons. The Hemingways spent three weeks waiting for their car, and it was during this very brief three-week interlude that Ernest—amazingly—finished the partially autobiographical novel about the First World War, "A Farewell To Arms." Soon after arrival, Hemingway made the acquaintance of Charles Thompson, who ran the local hardware store. Charles Thompson introduced Hemingway to the exciting world of big game sport fishing, and a long friendship was born. Charles and his wife Lorine entertained the Hemingways at their home on Fleming Street. Lorine Thompson proved to be as friendly and gracious as her husband Charles, and it was during those early days in Key West she and Pauline forged a friendship that would endure for the rest of their lives. Both Ernest and Pauline grew to love Key West and its inhabitants, and soon decided to look for a permanent residence. After two seasons in Key West, Pauline's Uncle Gus purchased the house on Whitehead Street for them in 1931. The Hemingway home was built in 1851 in the Spanish Colonial style, and was constructed of native rock hewn from the grounds. The home was in great disrepair when it the Hemingways took ownership, but both Ernest and Pauline could see beyond the rubble and ruin, and appreciated the grand architecture and stateliness of the home. The massive restoration and remodeling they undertook in the early 1930’s turned the home into the National Historical Landmark that thousands of tourists visit and enjoy today. A unique and extraordinary feature of the grounds is the pool, built in 1937-38, at the staggering cost of $20,000. It was the first in-ground pool in Key West, and the only pool within 100 miles. The exhorbitant construction costs once prompted Hemingway to take a penny from his pocket, press it into the wet cement of the surrounding patio, and announce jokingly, "Here, take the last penny I've got!" Tourists are invited to look for the penny, still embedded between flagstones at the north end of the pool. The Hemingways’ personal touches still abound throughout the house. Many of the unique furnishings are European antiques collected during their stay on the continent. The trophy mounts and skins were souvenirs of the Hemingways’ African safaris and numerous hunting expeditions in the American west. Ernest’s presence can still be felt in his studio where he produced some of his most well-known works. In addition, a very visible and living link to the past are the descendants of Hemingway's cats. The story goes that Hemingway made the acquaintance of a sea captain who owned an unusual six-toed tomcat, which captured Ernest’s fancy. Upon his departure from Key West, the captain presented the cat to Hemingway. Today many of the numerous cats that inhabit the grounds still possess the unusual six toes.

First Edition. Signed  and inscribed by Kurt Vonnegut.  (incribed "Happy rest of your lives!" 1993 ) Hard cover with dust jacket in a fine condition.      Fates Worse than Death, subtitled An Autobiographical Collage, is a 1990 collection of essays, speeches & other previously uncollected writings by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.. In the introduction to the book, he acknowledges the book is similar to an earlier book, Palm Sunday. In it he discusses his attempted suicide.
This book includes a "humanist requiem" that Vonnegut wrote as a reaction to the Roman Catholic Requiem, which he'd heard in Andrew Lloyd Webber's setting & whose text he found offensive. His own text was then set as a "Cosmos Cantata" by the composer Seymour Barab, of whom he said, "Barab's music is full of magic. He proved to an atheist that God exists. What an honor to have worked with him." The ending of this text is: "Let not eternal light disturb our sleep, O Cosmos, for Thou art merciful. Deliver me, O Cosmos, from everlasting wakefulness. On that dread day when the heavens & earth shall quake, when we shall dissolve the world into glowing ashes in the name of gods unknowable, I am seized with trembling & I am afraid until that day of reckoning shall arrive. Hence I pray, Deliver me, O Cosmos, from everlasting wakefulness on that day of wrath, calamity & misery. Rest grant us, O Cosmos, & let not light perpetual disturb our sleep

Nicholas II: Last of the Tsars

One of the world's preeminent historians, Marc Ferro is a leading member of the Annales School of France and a recognized authority on early twentieth-century European history.


 For well over two decades, in volumes such as The February Revolution of 1917 and October 1917, he has demonstrated an unsurpassed skill in capturing the social and political forces that led to the Russian Revolution. Now Ferro turns his considerable talents to the biography of one of the pivotal figures of that era, Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia.

Hockey that changed the world-- and Me

Both a player and a fan, Anderson mixes opinions and observations of the modern game with stories of his own hockey experiences, in western Canada, Spokane and Alaska. Much on the personalities of the WIHL

Maya, the Riddle and Rediscovery of a Lost Civilization

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process.

Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

The Royal Tour 1901 - or the Cruise of HMS Ophir

The Royal Tour is a facsimile of Petty Officer Harry Price's handwritten and illustrated account of the cruise of HMS Ophir in 1901, when the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary, toured almost the whole of the British Empire with the exception of India. They travelled via Gibraltar and Malta down the Red Sea to Colombo and Singapore, going on to Australia and New Zealand, across the Indian Ocean to South Africa via Mauritius and finally to Canada via St Vincent before returning to England. The whole trip took nearly nine months and was enormously popular with the countries visited. It was a time when teh British Empire was immensely strong, and the reception of the royal party at each port of call highlighted the success of the tour as a diplomatic exercise

Title Living History Chronicles

Thirty-three veterans of the Second World War and Korean War share their memories and make history come to life for us. The vignettes are varied and range from tragic to comic.


 Gwilym Jones says, "Choosing my most memorable wartime experience is, to me, like attempting to select the most palatable strawberry in a basket. . . . I accumulated many memories some were precious, some were unforgettable, others I would much rather forget."



 Here you will read about how it felt to liberate Holland, to entertain the troops, to be torpedoed, to thread your way through a minefield, to lose your best friend in an instant. You will read about the D-Day Landing at Juno Beach, the Italian Campaign, the Korean War. You will follow an RAF pilot as he is shot down, taken prisoner, and then exercising considerable ingenuity attempts to escape six times! All of these veterans are members of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 258 Living History Speakers Bureau, an organization whose primary objective is to ensure that today s history students become aware of, and take pride in, their Canadian heritage.

Race Without Rules

Helping a friend becomes a life-or-death matter in Race Without Rules, a thrilling one-thing-leads-to-another tale of robbery, neo-Nazism, murder and terrorism in the quiet, everyday life of Megan Brodie, a woman whose dedication to uncovering the truth is both refreshing and endearing, Beginning writers are often told to “write what they know.” If Grant had followed this maxim, we would have missed this thriller about a neo-Nazi biotechnology conspiracy that moves rapidly from WW II Berlin to modern-day Westmount, with a stop in the jungles of Brazil along the way.

It would be a shame to give away too much of the plot, but the major characters include Karl Treiger, an unwilling member of a group of neo-Nazis who hatch a plan to conquer the world through genetic engineering, and Megan Brodie, a Cree-Scottish woman who had been on trial for murder after killing the biker who raped her and threatened her daughter. Megan’s friend Fiona is attacked by a thief who is hell-bent on getting some old plans of her Westmount neighbourhood and is willing to commit murder and arson to get them. In the meantime, Trieger is escaping a trap set by Stoltz and Higler, two young Aryans who are the results of genetic engineering. Race Without Rules has a complex plot unfolded by a natural storyteller.

French explorator Alexandra David-Neel

Who was Alexandra David-Neel ?

Early life

Born in Paris in 1868, she moved to Ixelles (Brussels) at the age of six. During her childhood she had a very strong desire for freedom and spirituality. At the age of 18, she had already visited England, Switzerland and Spain on her own, and she was studying in Madame Blavatsky's Theosophical Society.

 Travel to India in 1890

In 1890 and 1891, she traveled through India, returning only when she was running out of money. In Tunis in 1900 she met and lived with the railroad engineer Philippe Néel, marrying him in 1904.

 Travel to Sikkim in 1911

In 1911 Alexandra left Néel and traveled for the second time to India, to further her study of Buddhism. She was invited to the royal monastery of Sikkim, where she met Maharaj Kumar (crown prince) Sidkeong Tulku Namgyal. She became Sidkeong's "confidante and spiritual sister" (according to Ruth Middleton), perhaps her lover (Foster & Foster). She also met the 13th Dalai Lama twice in 1912, and had the opportunity to ask him many questions about Buddhism—a feat unprecedented for a European woman at that time.
In the period 1914-1916 she lived in a cave in Sikkim, near the Tibetan border, learning spirituality, together with the young (born 1899) Sikkimese monk Aphur Yongden, who became her lifelong traveling companion, and whom she would adopt later. From there they trespassed into Tibetan territory, meeting the Panchen Lama in Shigatse (August 1916). When the British authorities learned of this—Sikkim was then a British protectorate—Alexandra and Aphur were forced to leave the country.

Travel to Japan in 1916

Unable to return to Europe in the middle of World War I, Alexandra and Yongden traveled to Japan.

 Travel to Tibet in 1924

In Japan Alexandra met Ekai Kawaguchi, who had visited Lhasa in 1901 disguised as a Chinese doctor, and this inspired them to visit Lhasa disguised as pilgrims. After traversing China from east to west, they reached Lhasa in 1924, and spent 2 months there.

 Return to France in 1928

In 1928 Alexandra legally separated from Philippe, but they continued to exchange letters and he kept supporting her till his death in 1941. Alexandra settled in Digne (Provence), and during the next nine years she wrote books. In 1929, she published her most famous and beloved work, Mystiques et Magiciens du Tibet (Magic and Mystery in Tibet).

 Travel to east Tibetan highlands in Tibet 1937

In 1937, Yongden and Alexandra went to Tibet through the former Soviet Union, traveling there during the second World War. They eventually ended up in Tachienlu, where she continued her investigations of Tibetan sacred literature.
One minor mystery relating to Alexandra David-Neel has a solution. In Forbidden Journey, p. 284, the authors wonder how Mme. David-Neel's secretary, Violet Sydney, made her way back to the West in 1939 after Sous des nuées d'orage (Storm Clouds) was completed in Tachienlu. Peter Goullart's Land of the Lamas (not in Forbidden Journey's bibliography), on pp. 110–113 gives an account of his accompanying Ms. Sydney partway back, then putting her under the care of Lolo bandits to continue the journey to Chengdu. Mme. David-Neel evidently remained in Tachienlu for the duration of the war.
While in Eastern Tibet Alexandra and Yongden completed circumambulation of the holy mountain Amnye Machen.

Return to France in 1946

The pair returned to France in 1946. Alexandra was then 78 years old. In 1955 Yongden died at age 56.

Death in France in 1969

Alexandra continued to study and write at Digne till her death at age nearly 101. According to her last will and testament, her ashes and those of Yongden were mixed together and dispersed in the Ganges in 1973 at Varanasi, by her friend Marie-Madeleine Peyronnet.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

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J. K. Rowling unveils in spectacular fashion the answers to the many questions that have been so eagerly awaited.

 The spellbinding, richly woven narrative, which plunges, twists and turns at a breathtaking pace, confirms the author as a mistress of storytelling, whose books will be read, reread and read again.