"Hemingway and the Mechanism of Fame assembles Hemingway's public writings about himself, all framed as documents of support for or criticism of other people and other products. Comprising 103 items - 54 public statements and letters; 20 introductions, forewords, and prefaces; and 29 book blurbs, reviews, and product endorsements - the collection chronicles the means by which Hemingway advanced his own standing through these literary and extraliterary writings." "From his commercial endorsements for the Parker 51 pen and Ballantine Ale to his Nobel Prize acceptance statement and commentary on President Kennedy's inauguration, from his enthusiastic blurbs for sporting books to his statements on Ezra Pound, Hemingway shows himself to be an expert marketing strategist, infusing each piece with thoughtfully crafted autobiography designed to engage his public and promote his image. Arranged in chronological order and spanning more than forty years, the selections in this volume map the development of Hemingway's most complex, studied, criticized, parodied, and celebrated fictional character: Ernest Hemingway himself."--Jacket.