In Reading Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not: Glossary and Commentary scholar Kirk Curnutt points out the lack of dedication and epigraph for this particular novel as an exception to the Hemingway oeuvre. He suggests in some cases epigraphs “justify” the books they introduce. Could the novel these 87 years later be read for the first time with a “fill in your own” attitude? As a new reader with what little I do yet know: imagining Sloppy Joe’s bar owner for the dedication does add something. I do know his particular legend lives on. Curnutt cites a dedication lifted from Hemingway’s hand-inscribed copy:

“To Joe Russell
who was my professor in the
sociological studies which
resulted in this little economic
treatise.
—Ernest Hemingway”

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