Is there any evidence that George Orwell read 'For whom the bell tolls'? Did Hemingway read 'Homage to Catalonia' or (later) '1984'?

Question

Orwell was familiar with Hemingway, who was already very famous by the 1920s. Mostly Orwell was quite scathing about Hemingway, because of his macho image.Hemingway was relatively favourable towards the official Communists, did this contribute to Orwell's antipathy towards him? Did he ever read Hemingway's novel about the Spanish Civil War?Did Hemingway read Orwell's book on the Spanish Civil War, Homage to Catalonia?Did Hemingway read 1984 (obviously, *after* he had written *For whom the bell tolls*)?Edit: I see from the Hemingway list below that Ernie owned *three* copies of *Homage to Catalonia*, including a first edition from 1938. I recall reading that only a few hundred copies were printed in '38 (HoC flopped as direct political pamphleteering) so this must have been a fairly rare first edition. Perhaps someone knows if Hemingway was the kind of man to collect books without reading them, or if he would have probably read what books he owned.

Answer 1

Although there appears to be no real "evidence" that they read the books of authors that they admired, there are incidences that they each paid homage to the other. They clearly had not only drastic experiences in Spain during the war, but their writing styles permitted the appearance of contrasting views. I do not believe either man would report their great respect for the other's writing of such a historical and emotional event if they each had not read at least a bit of the other's novels. In an interview, Hemingway mentioned that Orwell's account was "too political to read deeply." Orwell, in turn, felt that Hemingway's account was "fascinating and flowery." These remarks (Kenyon Review, Fall 2009) denote a familiarity with the content.