As any aspiring writer or artist will attest, there will always be a natural desire to meet those whose creative works have inspired you. The longing to meet and converse with the men and women whose artistic works have connected with you on some biological – perhaps even ethereal – level, is one that many of us will sadly never see fulfilled; especially since, unfortunately, many of those great cultural titans are no longer with us (not to bring the mood down here at all).

Yet in 1934, a 22-year old aspiring writer named Arnold Samuelson was granted this most precious of meetings. Having set out with one goal – to meet Ernest Hemingway and become his literary apprentice – this young son of Norwegian immigrant wheat farmers spent almost an entire year staying with one of the most important writers of the 20th century.

“It seemed like a damn fool thing to do,” Samuelson recalled, “but a twenty-two-year-old tramp during the Great Depression didn’t have much reason for what he did.”

Yet Samuelson’s quest was not in vain. Shortly after the young man’s arrival in Key West, Hemingway got right down to granting him what he had traveled there seeking. In one of their first exchanges, he hands Samuelson a handwritten list and instructs him:

“Here’s a list of books any writer should have read as a part of his education… If you haven’t read these, you just aren’t educated. They represent different types of writing. Some may bore you, others might inspire you and others are so beautifully written they’ll make you feel it’s hopeless for you to try to write.”

The full list is here below: