• lobut@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Most people know now, but for those that don’t:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn

    It says it’s attributed to Ernest Hemingway but that claim seems unlikely.

    The claim of Hemingway’s authorship originates in an unsubstantiated anecdote about a wager among him and other writers. Hemingway is said to have claimed he could write a short story only six words short. In a 1991 letter to Canadian humorist John Robert Colombo, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke recounts: “He’s [Hemingway] supposed to have won a $10 bet (no small sum in the '20s) from his fellow writers. They paid up without a word. … Here it is. I still can’t think of it without crying— FOR SALE. BABY SHOES. NEVER WORN.”[1]