Manuscripts among rare Hemingway items shown at JFK library

BOSTON (AP) — Ernest Hemingway penned 47 possible endings to A Farewell to Arms, eight of which are on display at a new exhibition on the famed American writer at the John F. Kennedy presidential library — along with the one that actually concluded the classic World War I novel.

"If a person wants to make their mark as a writer they have to work very hard, and this exhibit really shows how hard he worked," said Patrick Hemingway, the author's only surviving child who on Tuesday toured the exhibition that opened Monday in Boston and runs through Dec. 31.

Along with the multiple proposed endings to A Farewell to Arms, highlights of the exhibit include Hemingway's first short story, published in 1917 in a high school literary magazine; a draft of his first Nick Adams story, written on Red Cross stationary at an Italian hospital where Hemingway was recovering from wounds suffered while serving as an ambulance driver during World War I; correspondence with other literary figures from his time as a member of the so-called "lost generation" in Paris; and ticket stubs from some of the many bullfights he attended.

After his death, Kennedy, despite the extreme tensions that followed the Bay of Pigs episode, gained permission for Hemingway's fourth wife and widow, Mary, to go to Cuba to collect her husband's belongings, which were then shipped from Havana to Florida on a shrimp boat.