SOURCE: "The Slopes of Kilimanjaro: A Biographical Perspective," in Novel: A Forum on Fiction, Vol. I, No. 1, Fall, 1967, pp.19-23.

In the following essay, Baker identifies the various influences on "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."

This much is known, moreover, that at times people ascend the mountain, and descend again in safety, if they but choose the right season; of which, indeed, they are mostly ignorant, and hence many have perished in the attempt.

—John Rebmann's Diary of a Journey to Kilimanjaro, 1849.

In August, 1935, Ernest Hemingway completed the first draft of a story about a writer who died of gangrene on a hunting trip in what was then Tanganyika. The nonfiction "novel," Green Hills of Africa, was already in press and due for publication in October. But the book had not used up all the material which Hemingway had accumulated in the course of his shooting safari of January...