BOSTON -- The unpublished log from Ernest Hemingway's boat Pilar, chronicling the marlin-fishing and shark-catching that inspired 'The Old Man and The Sea,' was presented Wednesday to the John F. Kennedy Library.
The author's son, Patrick, 60, dubbed 'Mouse' by his father during their years in Key West, Fla., officially added the manuscript to the library's extensive Hemingway collection.
The 95-page maritime log is a copy of the original that Hemingway dictated to the man who is considered his only protege, Arnold Samuelson. Samuelson spent a year, from 1934 to 1935, as a crewhand and night watchman for Hemingway. The original is believed to have been lost.
Hemingway's son, who traveled from Montana for the ceremony, said his father's time on the Pilar, which he bought for $7,400 in April 1934, provided much of the experience and inspiration for 'The Old Man and the Sea,' as well as for 'To Have and Have Not.'
'The Old Man and the Sea' was one of the works that brought Hemingway the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.
Pilar was Hemingway's pet name for the second of his four wives, Pauline, the mother of Patrick.
'After all, it is just a boat, but it did have a great deal of influence on his work, later becoming his most admired book in the world,' said Hemingway, referring to the 'Old Man and the Sea.'
'This (book) was a distillation of his experience mostly acquired on this boat,' he said. 'He met while on this boat the old Cuban fisherman who had the run-in with the shark. Pilar is a central them in Hemingway's life. He really came into his own as captain of that ship.'
The log, which chronicles marlin fishing, whale chasing and shark catching, were recorded during trips around Key West and Cuba from July 1934 to February 1935.
Part of the entry from July 28, 1934, says, 'Caught nothing all afternoon and came in at 6:10. Trolled for tarpon -- no strikes -- ran out of gas on port tank in harbor but cut in other... Julio came on board with El Cojo and we had long talk before a supper of corned beef, garbanzos and avocado salad.'
The log entries also refer to strikes and political troubles in Cuba and Spain and record the visits of such guests as John Dos Passos, Max Perkins and American bullfigher Sidney Franklin.
'He gave the impression of never working at all. He had a routine of working in the morning -- and he put in a full morning of work -- but then he'd spend the whole afternoon fishing,' he said.
The library has already obtained 95 percent of Hemingway's manuscripts, said deputy curator Frank Rigg. It received its collection from the author's fourth wife, Mary, who died in 1986.
The library bought the Pilar log for $3,000 from Christie's of New York, he said.
