The only thing that counts

In 1924 F. Scott Fitzgerald told his editor Maxwell Perkins about a young American expatriate in Paris, an unknown writer with a "brilliant future." When Perkins wrote to Ernest Hemingway several months later, he commenced a correspondence spanning more than two decades and charting the career of the most influential American author of this century.

The letters collected here are the record of a remarkable professional alliance - an enduring friendship between editor and author - and of Hemingway's development as a writer. Determined to be a great novelist, Hemingway reported frequently on the pitfalls and triumphs of the writing process. While his fiction is characterized by precision and control, his letters reveal Hemingway at his most ebullient.

Whether self-satisfied, bitter, or intoxicated, he wrote impassioned letters about everything that was on his mind, from literature and money to bull-fighting, fishing, and friendship.

From Paris in the Twenties through the Depression, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II, the correspondence between these men provides inside commentary on an era marked by influential developments in both literature and politics. And finally, for anyone interested in books, editing, and authorship, Perkins and Hemingway's exchange on the subjects of advances, advertising, critics, jacket illustrations, and movie deals show how much has changed in book publishing and how much has stayed the same.