Hemingway (center) with Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens and German writer Ludwig Renn (serving as an International Brigades officer) during Spanish Civil War.
(In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, in...)
In Our Time contains several early Hemingway classics, including the famous Nick Adams stories "Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "The Three Day Blow," and "The Battler," and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway style: a lean, tough prose -- enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic that suggests, through the simplest of statements, a sense of moral value and a clarity of heart.
(Men Without Women represents some of Hemingway's most imp...)
Men Without Women represents some of Hemingway's most important and compelling early writing. In these fourteen stories, Hemingway begins to examine the themes that would occupy his later works: the casualties of war, the often uneasy relationship between men and women, sport and sportsmanship. In "Banal Story," Hemingway offers a lasting tribute to the famed matador Maera. "In Another Country" tells of an Italian major recovering from war wounds as he mourns the untimely death of his wife. "The Killers" is the hard-edged story about two Chicago gunmen and their potential victim. Nick Adams makes an appearance in "Ten Indians," in which he is presumably betrayed by his Indian girlfriend, Prudence. And "Hills Like White Elephants" is a young couple's subtle, heartwrenching discussion of abortion.
(A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an Ameri...)
A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse. Set against the looming horrors of the battlefield - the weary, demoralized men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion—this gripping, semiautobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.
(Death in the Afternoon reflects Hemingway's belief that b...)
Death in the Afternoon reflects Hemingway's belief that bullfighting was more than mere sport. Here he describes and explains the technical aspects of this dangerous ritual, and "the emotional and spiritual intensity and pure classic beauty that can be produced by a man, an animal, and a piece of scarlet serge draped on a stick." Seen through his eyes, bullfighting becomes an art, a richly choreographed ballet, with performers who range from awkward amateurs to masters of great grace and cunning.
(To Have and Have Not is the dramatic story of Harry Morga...)
To Have and Have Not is the dramatic story of Harry Morgan, an honest man who is forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West as a means of keeping his crumbling family financially afloat. His adventures lead him into the world of the wealthy and dissipated yachtsmen who throng the region, and involve him in a strange and unlikely love affair.
(The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the Inter...)
The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving, and wise.
(Set in Venice at the close of World War II, Across the Ri...)
Set in Venice at the close of World War II, Across the River and into the Trees is the bittersweet story of a middle-aged American colonel, scarred by war and in failing health, who finds love with a young Italian countess at the very moment when his life is becoming a physical hardship to him. It is a love so overpowering and spontaneous that it revitalizes the man's spirit and encourages him to dream of a future, even though he knows that there can be no hope for long.
(The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduri...)
The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal -- a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.
(The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories contains ten o...)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories contains ten of Hemingway's most acclaimed and popular works of short fiction. Selected from Winner Take Nothing, Men Without Women, and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, this collection includes "The Killers," the first of Hemingway's mature stories to be accepted by an American periodical; the autobiographical "Fathers and Sons," which alludes, for the first time in Hemingway's career, to his father's suicide and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber".
(Hemingway's memories of his life as an unknown writer liv...)
Hemingway's memories of his life as an unknown writer living in Paris in the twenties are deeply personal, warmly affectionate, and full of wit. Looking back not only at his own much younger self, but also at the other writers who shared Paris with him - James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald - he recalls the time when, poor, happy, and writing in cafes, he discovered his vocation.
(This is the story of an artist and adventurer -- a man mu...)
This is the story of an artist and adventurer -- a man much like Hemingway himself. Beginning in the 1930s, Islands in the Stream follows the fortunes of Thomas Hudson, from his experiences as a painter on the Gulf Stream island of Bimini through his antisubmarine activities off the coast of Cuba during World War II.
(In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short...)
In this definitive collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories, readers will delight in the author's most beloved classics such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and will discover seven new tales published for the first time in this collection.
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist, one of the most celebrated and influential literary stylists of the 20th century. His work is characterized by a spare, succinct writing style with a distinctively modern feel that, especially in the 1920s, presented a strong contrast to the ornate prose of the nineteenth century.
Background
Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois, on July 21, 1898. His father was a country physician, who taught his son hunting and fishing; his mother was a religiously puritanical woman, active in church affairs, who led her boy to play the cello and sing in the choir.
Hemingway's early years were spent largely in combating the repressive feminine influence of his mother and nurturing the masculine influence of his father. He spent the summers with his family in the woods of northern Michigan, where he often accompanied his father on professional calls. The discovery of his father's apparent cowardice, later depicted in the short story "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," and his suicide several years later left the boy with an emotional scar.
Education
Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School from 1913 to 1917. He excelled in English and actively contributed to his school newspaper, "Trapeze and Tabula". He also participated in a variety of sports like boxing, track and field, water polo, and football.
Hemingway volunteered for active service in the infantry in 1917 but was rejected because of eye trouble. After spending several months as a reporter for the Kansas City Star, Hemingway enlisted in the Red Cross medical service, driving an ambulance on the Italian front. He was badly wounded in the knee at Fossalta di Piave; yet, still under heavy mortar fire, he carried a wounded man on his back a considerable distance to the aid station.
After having over 200 shell fragments removed from his legs and body, Hemingway next enlisted in the Italian infantry, served on the Austrian front until the armistice, and was decorated for bravery by the Italian government.
Shortly after the war, Hemingway worked as a foreign correspondent in the Near East for the Toronto Star. When he returned to Michigan, he had already decided to commit himself to fiction writing. His excellent journalism and the publication in magazines of several experimental short stories had impressed the well-known author Sherwood Anderson, who, when Hemingway decided to return to Europe, gave him letters of introduction to expatriates Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. Hemingway and his bride, Hadley Richardson, journeyed to Paris, where he served his literary apprenticeship under these two prominent authors. Despite the abject poverty in which he and his wife lived, these were the happiest years of Hemingway's life, as well as the most artistically fruitful.
In 1923 Hemingway published his first book, "Three Stories and Ten Poems." The poems are insignificant, but the stories give strong indication of his emerging genius. "Out of Season" already contains the psychological tension and moral ambivalence characteristic of his mature work. "With In Our Time" (1925) Hemingway's years of apprenticeship ended.
Hemingway returned to the United States in 1926 with the manuscripts of two novels and several short stories. The "Torrents of Spring" (1926), a parody of Sherwood Anderson, was written very quickly, largely for the purpose of breaking his contract with Boni and Liveright, who was also Anderson's publisher. That May, Scribner's issued Hemingway's second novel, "The Sun Also Rises."
Hemingway's second volume of short stories, "Men without Women" (1927), contains "The Killers," about a man who refuses to run from gangsters determined to kill him; "The Light of the World," dealing with Nick Adams's premature introduction to the sickening world of prostitution and homosexuality; and "The Undefeated," concerning an aging bullfighter whose courage and dedication constitute a moral victory in the face of physical defeat and death.
In December 1929 "A Farewell to Arms" was published. Hemingway revealed his passionate interest in bull-fighting in "Death in the Afternoon" (1932), a humorous and inventive nonfiction study.
In 1933 Scribner's published his final collection of short stories, "Winner Take Nothing". This volume, containing his most bitter and disillusioned writing, deals almost exclusively with emotional breakdown, impotence, and homosexuality.
Hemingway's African safari in 1934 provided the material for another nonfiction work, "The Green Hills of Africa" (1935), as well as two of his finest short stories, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Both stories concern attainment of self-realization and moral integrity through contact with fear and death.
Hemingway wrote "To Have and Have Not" (1937) in response to the 1930s depression. The novel, inadequately conceived and poorly executed, deals with a Florida smuggler whose illegal activities and frequent brutalities mask his sense of ethics and strength of character.
The chief political catalyst in Hemingway's life was the Spanish Civil War. In 1936 he had returned to Spain as a newspaper reporter and participated in raising funds for the Spanish Republic until the war's end in 1939. In 1937 he collaborated on the documentary film "The Spanish Earth." Hemingway's only writing during this period was a play, "The Fifth Column" (1936; produced in New York in 1940), a sincere but dramatically ineffective attempt to portray the conditions prevailing during the siege of Madrid.
Seventeen months after that war ended, Hemingway completed "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940). His most ambitious novel, it describes an American professor's involvement with a loyalist guerrilla band and his brief, idyllic love affair with a Spanish girl. A vivid, intelligently conceived narrative, it is written in less lyrical and more dramatic prose than his earlier work.
Following the critical and popular success of "For Whom the Bell Tolls," Hemingway lapsed into a literary silence that lasted a full decade and was largely the result of his strenuous, frequently reckless, activities during World War II.
In 1942 as a Collier's correspondent with the 3d Army, he witnessed some of the bloodiest battles in Europe. Although he served in no official capacity, he commanded a personal battalion of over 200 troops and was granted the respect and privileges normally accorded a general. At this time he received the affectionate appellation of "Papa" from his admirers, both military and literary.
Following the war, Hemingway and his wife purchased a home, Finca Vigia, near Havana, Cuba. Hemingway's only literary work was some anecdotal articles for Esquire; the remainder of his time was spent fishing, hunting, battling critics, and providing copy for gossip columnists.
In 1950 he ended his literary silence with "Across the River and into the Trees."
Hemingway's remarkable gift for recovery once again asserted itself in 1952 with the appearance of a novella about an extraordinary battle between a tired old Cuban fisherman and a giant marlin. "The Old Man and the Sea," immediately hailed a masterpiece. Although lacking the emotional tensions of his longer works, this novella possesses a generosity of spirit and reverence for life which make it an appropriate conclusion for Hemingway's career.
Hemingway's rapidly deteriorating physical condition and an increasingly severe psychological disturbance drastically curtailed his literary capabilities in the last years of his life. A nostalgic journey to Africa planned by the author and his wife in 1954 ended in their plane crash over the Belgian Congo.
Hemingway suffered severe burns and internal injuries from which he never fully recovered. Additional strain occurred when the revolutionary Cuban government of Fidel Castro forced the Hemingways to leave Finca Vigía. After only a few months in their new home in Ketchum, Idaho, Hemingway was admitted to the Mayo Clinic to be treated for hypertension and emotional depression and was later treated by electroshock therapy. Scornful of an illness which humiliated him physically and impaired his writing, he killed himself with a shotgun on July 2, 1961.
Shortly after Hemingway's death, literary critic Malcolm Cowley and scholar Carlos Baker were entrusted with the task of going through the writer's remaining manuscripts to decide what material might be publishable. The first posthumous work, "A Moveable Feast" (1964), is an elegiac reminiscence of Hemingway's early years in Paris, containing some fine writing as well as brilliant vignettes of his famous contemporaries. A year later the Atlantic Monthly published a few insignificant short stories and two long, rambling poems. In 1967 William White edited a collection of Hemingway's best journalism under the title By-Line Ernest Hemingway.
(The Old Man and the Sea is one of Hemingway's most enduri...)
1952
Religion
Ernest Hemingway was born a Protestant but converted to Catholicism when he married Pauline Pfeiffer, his second Wife. He said that becoming a Catholic was one of the best things he’d done in his life.
Politics
Hemingway’s political views were complex and, at times, seemed contradictory. He was an intelligent man and it is possible that his thinking merely evolved over time. Hemingway understood the dynamics of nationalized economics and prosperity. He often supported the epitome of a government/economic synthesis–communism. It was recently revealed that Hemingway was on the books as a KGB agent who, according to KGB files "repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us." Ernest was also a big supporter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs.
Views
The popularity of Hemingway's work depends on its themes of love, war, wilderness, and loss. These are recurring themes in American literature, and are quite clearly evident in Ernest's work. At its core, much of Hemingway's work can be viewed in the light of American naturalism, evident in detailed descriptions such as those in "Big Two-Hearted River". The theme of emasculation is also prevalent in Hemingway's work, most notably in The Sun Also Riseshe and the theme of women and death is evident in stories as early as Indian Camp.
Quotations:
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."
"But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."
"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."
"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it."
"Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self."
"Every day above earth is a good day."
"Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is."
"All things truly wicked start from innocence."
"When people talk listen completely. Most people never listen."
Personality
Ernest Hemingway was full of energy, always on the go, fidgety, and quite hyperactive. He loved mental and physical exercise. Ernest kept himself physically or mentally busy at all times, and he felt better spending time outdoors and eating natural foods. He felt equally at home stalking lions in Africa or cruising the Gulf Stream in search of marlin and tuna. It was on safaris in Africa that Hemingway felt most alive. He was such a good hunter that during his second safari the local game warden even left him temporarily in charge of the district he was quartered in.
Physical Characteristics:
The Hemingway of the early Paris years was a "tall, handsome, muscular, broad-shouldered, brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked, square-jawed, soft-voiced young man."
Quotes from others about the person
James Nagel: "Hemingway changed the nature of American writing."
Interests
deep-sea fishing, big-game hunting, boxing, bullfighting, and war
Writers
Leo Tolstoy
Connections
Ernest Hemingway was married four times. His first wife was Elizabeth Hadley Richardson who he wed in 1921. The couple had one son. Hemingway became involved in an affair with Pauline Pfeiffer during this marriage. When his wife came to learn of it, she divorced him.
He married Pauline Pfeiffer in 1927 soon after his divorce. They had two sons. Hemingway was not faithful to Pauline either and developed a relationship with Martha Gellhorn which led to his divorce from Pauline in 1940.
Shortly after his second divorce, he tied the knot for the third time with Martha Gellhorn. A successful journalist in her own right, she resented being referred to as Hemingway’s wife. Over the course of this marriage, she started an affair with U. S. paratrooper Major General James M. Gavin, and divorced Hemingway in 1945.
His fourth and final marriage was to Mary Welsh in 1946. The couple remained married till Hemingway’s death.
Father:
Clarence Edmonds Hemingway
Mother:
Grace Hall-Hemingway
Spouse:
Mary Welsh Hemingway
ex-spouse:
Hadley Richardson
ex-spouse:
Pauline Pfeiffer
ex-spouse:
Martha Gellhorn
sibling:
Carol Hemingway
sibling:
Ursula Hemingway
sibling:
Marcelline Hemingway Sanford
sibling:
Leicester Hemingway
Son:
Patrick Hemingway
Son:
Jack Hemingway
Son:
Gregory Hemingway
References
Ernest Hemingway: A Writer's Life
Here, in the only biography available to young people, Catherine Reef introduces readers to Hemingway's work, with a focus on his themes and writing styles and his place in the history of American fiction, and examines writers who influenced him and those he later influenced.
Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
This biography brings into sharp focus a picture of one of the most unusual men of our time. Previously blurred by legends and half-truths, the life of Ernest Hemingway has never until now been represented as it was, not have the relationships between his works of fiction and his actual experiences been shown in true perspective.
1967
Ernest Hemingway: A Biography
A revelatory look into the life and work of Ernest Hemingway, considered in his time to be the greatest living American novelist and short-story writer, winner of the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Mary Dearborn's new biography gives the richest and most nuanced portrait to date of this complex, enigmatically unique American artist, whose same uncontrollable demons that inspired and drove him throughout his life undid him at the end, and whose seven novels and six-short story collections informed - and are still informing - fiction writing generations after his death.