Notes:
1. The best resource, by far, on Hemingway’s time in Kansas City is Steve Paul’s meticulously researched, richly detailed book Hemingway at Eighteen, which also covers Hemingway’s time as a volunteer ambulance driver in Italy during World War I.
Steve also maintains a blog that’s well worth a visit, which has a number of Hemingway-related entries:
https://www.stevepaulkc.com/a-hemingway-ramble
Here’s an interview with Steve Paul and James McGrath Morris, conducted at the World War I Museum in Kansas City in 2017. James McGrath Morris is the author of the excellent The Ambulance Drivers: Hemingway, Dos Passos, and a Friendship Made and Lost in War. Both authors discuss their books and Hemingway’s experiences during the First World War.
2. Some interesting articles in the Kansas City Star about Hemingway’s time in the area can be found below:
Hemingway’s Kansas City: A short story
Which book did Ernest Hemingway write in a Johnson County bedroom? How KC inspired the author
Ernest Hemingway and Kansas City: A Literary Tour
Of `Star Style’ and a reporter named Hemingway
Steve Paul: Ernest Hemingway’s letters include hints of Kansas City
From his time to ours, Hemingway still speaks
‘Papa’ Hemingway, as seen by a son
(Subscription required for access to some of these articles)
3, Information about The Hemingway Building (former Police Station No. 4) gleaned from:
https://theclio.com/entry/156436
4. A transcript of NPR’s interview with Patrick Hemingway on his 80th birthday can be found here:
https://www.npr.org/2008/06/28/91993806/hemingways-son-marks-80th-birthday
5. More information about the birth of Patrick Hemingway and the writing of A Farewell to Arms while Ernest and Pauline were in Kansas City can be found either in Michael Reynolds’ Hemingway: The American Homecoming, the third volume of his five book biography, or here in this Kansas City Star article:
Two births in 1928 KC: A son and a novel insight
(Subscription required)
6. The letters mentioned here can be found in The Cambridge Edition of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway Volume 1 1907-1922
7. A facsimile of the Kansas City Star’s famed style sheet can be found here:
8. A collection of Hemingway’s Articles for the Kansas City Star was published by Dodo Press in 2008. Public domain copies of some of his articles for the newspaper can be found here:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hemingway%27s_articles_for_the_Kansas_City_Star
9. More information about the Kansas City Massacre can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City_massacre?wprov=sfti1
Finally, thank you to Gwyneth for driving me to all these wonderful and occasionally scary places in Kansas City. Later I investigated them on my own, many times, but it was Gwyneth who first took me to them. She’s a wee gem.
The Literary Tourist 