Ask not for whom the till tolls ...

THIS WAS the summer that Ernest Hemingway went up to the soft furnishings department.

They called him Papa, the Old One, the Master. He wrote of the way that men are when they go to war and hunt and fish and do the things that men do. He went to the front in Spain and he went to the front in Italy and he wrote of the blood and the pain and the wounds in the place that we do not speak of. When it was over then he did what he had to do, and he took his own life with a shotgun, just like that. Like all the Great Ones, he lived on with his words.

But the ones that he left behind, the family, they wanted more. It is good to have the words and the memories, but sometimes they are not enough. They wanted the money. They wanted the dollars and the Swiss francs and the Japanese yen. They wanted the extensive franchising opportunities. And so they have launched the Ernest Hemingway furnishing range and accessories.

A Farewell to Arms was what he wrote, but now it is hello to armchairs. That is the way that it is, now, in the literary world. You can have your prizes, and your literary insights and stylistic innovations, but if you do not get your celebrity eyewear on to the shelves before Christmas then you are dead in the water, compadre.

It is "masculine and simple," this furniture, like the words of the Old One. They are "earthy and rugged", the Kenya, Ketchum, Key West and Havana ranges. The duck decoys from K William Kautz are just right for putting on the mantlepiece under the stuffed lion's head. "A brand gives attributes that consumers can identify with. Ernest Hemingway conjures up a myriad of images, filled with emotion, passion, adventure and a sense of awe." That is what Marla Metzner from Fashion Licencing Of America says. She is wise, this Marla.

The thing with the brand, it is a powerful thing. There is the Ernest Hemingway Mont Blanc fountain pen. There are the safari jackets and the spectacles. There are bronze marlin sculptures and wicker chairs and tooled leather sofas and fabrics. There is not an Ernest Hemingway shotgun.

The families of the other Old Ones, they will be thinking: what is this thing and how can I get some of it? Perhaps there will be a Graham Greene range ("The priest's room was small and mean, and smelt of death, betrayal and whisky. But it contained a nicely understated three-piece wicker suite with a set of nested tables in veneered cherrywood.") Perhaps you would feel more at home with the George Orwell Room 101 range and Matching Rat. Or perhaps not.

If he were here, then the Old One would have looked at the furniture and spat, leaving a nasty stain on the Nairobi Safari writing desk. "Cojones," he would have said. But then that is the way that is, this thing with the marketing franchise. Go with God, Old One, but make sure you take your credit card.