Hemingway lost more than a novel manuscript. While moving to France, he lost an entire trunk that contained most of his unpublished writing. He was obviously crushed, as would be anyone who has ever lost such personal and irreplaceable work. Gertrude Stein helped him realize the disguised blessing in this catastrophe; he was freed of the difficulty of rewriting his early work and moved forward with a new, mature style.

Actually, Hemingway's wife lost his transcripts on a train; thus, making Hemingway have to re-write his novel. The novel? "The Sun Also Rises" It was William Tyndale, who lost his biblical manuscripts at sea NOT Hemingway. source: "Good News Magazine," July/August 2004 issue, which is online at: http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn53/williamtyndale.htm I hope this helps!

In Hotchner's biography on Hem, the name of which escapes me as it's thirty years since I've read it, Hotchner describes Hem and his first wife living in a leaky cold-water Parisian walk-up. The finer details may escape me at this late date, but the way I remeber this is that Hem had just published his first novel about the northwoods of Michigan after living a couple of years off a spotty income stringing for the wire services. Hotchner says Hem told him that, at this time, he'd also completed the first draft of a novel he'd been working on since the end of the war. So, with the front money from the northwoods novel, he decided to take his wife and the manuscript on a working vacation to Bavaria by train from Paris. Soon after arrival Mrs. Hemmingway confessed that she left the bag containing the manuscript on the train, never to be seen again. Soon after returning to Paris, he started on The Sun Also Rises. Keep in mind, however, Hem, from a very young age was a wonderfully charming bullshit artist and loved to entertain in this way -- I cite the trouble he had when returning from WWI after writing his mother exagerating the medals he'd received from a grateful Italian government. She took it to the papers and he had some explaining to do. Hotchner knew this side of Hem well and this is probably why this episode was given only a single paragraph in the book and not mentioned again in any of Hotchner's writings, as far as I know. So, this might be a dead end. Good Luck.