Fifty-four years ago today, Ernest Hemingway wrote his editor at Scribner's that The Old Man and the Sea was the best he could write ever.

NPR: The Enduring Depths of 'Old Man and the Sea'

Ernest Hemingway wrote that the circus is a "happy dream" but, as Mr. Wall suggests, in a dream the dreamer reconnects with what he already knows.

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Author Ernest Hemingway wrote about it in his 1920s novel, "The Sun Also Rises, " also published under the title, "Fiesta, " and crowds have poured in from around the globe ever since.

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Fifty-four years ago today, on March 4, 1952, Mr. Hemingway wrote his publisher that he had just finished a short novel that was, quote, The best I can write ever for all of my life.

NPR: The Enduring Depths of 'Old Man and the Sea'

"Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up, " wrote Hemingway in a letter in 1950.

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It put Mailer within striking distance of his idol Ernest Hemingway who also wrote about his experiences in war and was preoccupied by questions of masculinity.

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No writer has dominated American journalism less for what he wrote than for how he wrote it than Ernest Hemingway.

FORBES: Magazine Article

He wanted to be known as a writer, and wrote a couple of dozen books, more than his hero Hemingway did.

ECONOMIST: George Plimpton