A superb document signed, two pages, 8" x 12.5", New York, November 12, 1943, being Hemingway's sworn affidavit in the copyright infringement action Ernest Hemingway vs. E. B. Wood, filed to halt an unauthorized dramatic exploitation of For Whom the Bell Tolls. Fine condition, boldly signed.
In 1940, For Whom the Bell Tolls was an immediate sensation — a Book-of-the-Month Club selection that sold over 500,000 copies in its first year and was quickly optioned by Paramount Pictures for a record $100,000 (the highest price ever paid for a literary property at that date). The film, starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman, would not be released until 1943, making any unauthorized stage or radio exploitation during this window a direct threat to the studio's investment and Hemingway's earnings. E. B. Wood, an enterprising producer, sought to capitalize on the novel's fame without securing rights. Hemingway, through his longtime attorney Maurice J. Speiser, filed suit to enjoin Wood's production.
The case echoes the earlier and better-known Hemingway and Stallings v. Hollywood Play, Inc. (1939), in which Hemingway unsuccessfully attempted to block an unauthorized dramatization of A Farewell to Arms — a bitter legal defeat that taught him to guard his subsidiary rights aggressively. The present affidavit shows Hemingway applying that hard-learned lesson, framing his reputation itself as a piece of commercial property requiring legal protection.