JFK Library releases Hemingway scrapbooks

“At 8 o’clock on the morning of July 21st. 1899 Ernest Miller Hemingway came to town wrapped in a light blue comforter. It was a very hot morning. The sun shone brightly and the Robins sang their sweetest songs to welcome the little stranger to this beautiful world.”

So begins the first of five lengthy scrapbooks that Grace Hall Hemingway used to document in meticulous detail the life of her son Ernest, from his birth until he turned 18.

On Sunday, to mark the 114th anniversary of Hemingway’s birth, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which holds nearly all of the author’s manuscripts, will make digital versions of the scrapbooks available online for the first time, offering an unprecedented view of his childhood. The library’s website — www.jfklibrary.org — directs users to the Hemingway collection....