best ernest hemingway biography

Reviews of Biographies of Ernest Hemingway From the Archives of The New York Times Related Articles Featured Author: Ernest Hemingway Hemingway Collection/ JFK Library, Boston Hemingway as a child in Willow Lake, Michigan. Carlos Baker's 'Ernest Hemingway' (1968) "Professor Baker has delivered his trophy and it is, as promised, a life-size replica of Ernest Hemingway. . . . In plain language, reading Carlos Baker's long-awaited biography is hugely exasperating. But then so, apparently, was Ernest Hemingway." Bernice Kert's 'The Hemingway Women' (1983) "Kert's study proves valuable in ways that are different from, and certainly more graceful than, the usual psychobiography. By re-creating Hemingway's life from the perspective of his wives and lovers, a now-familiar story achieves greater dimension." Raymond Carver on Hemingway Biographies by Jeffrey Meyers and Peter Griffin (1985) "Adulation is not a requirement for biographers, but Mr. Meyers's book fairly bristles with disapproval of its subject. . . . The only possible antidote for how you feel about Hemingway after finishing this book is to go back at once and reread the fiction itself. How clear, serene and solid the best work still seems . . ." Kenneth S. Lynn's 'Hemingway' (1987) "Hemingway, in Mr. Lynn's version, actually lived the kind of courageous and painful life he wrote about. . . . 'Hemingway' helps us recover a view of his life as having been, despite its end, a success." James R. Mellow's 'Hemingway' (1992) ". . . fresh and powerfully coherent, and stands with the best work done on the writer to date." Nancy R. Comley and Robert Scholes's 'Hemingway's Genders' (1994) ". . . a surprisingly succinct and jargon-free essay despite its deconstructionist subtitle . . . The results are richly rewarding. Whatever else the authors accomplish, they force one to see new subtleties in stories read dozens of times before . . ." Michael Reynolds's 'Hemingway: The 1930's' (1997) ". . . a good account of the 10 years of Ernest Hemingway's life in which his public image took shape and his writing skills began to mature. However, Michael Reynolds perpetuates the popular myth that by knowing more about Hemingway's life we know more about his novels." Michael Reynolds's 'Hemingway: The Final Years' (1999) "Excellent and exhaustive . . . One of the forces of disintegration, sensitively considered by Reynolds, was Hemingway's fear that he would never write anything better than 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' . . . " Return to the Books Home Page

The 10 Best Ernest Hemingway Books Everyone Should Read

These are the best Ernest Hemingway books to introduce you to America’s favorite author.

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

Hemingway’s novels and short stories — which won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and a Nobel Prize in 1954 — borrowed heavily from his real-life exploits, painting a picture of American masculinity that still resonates with readers today. While he may be most famous for his militantly simple sentences, Hemingway’s work endures thanks to his masterful reflections on subjects like marriage and divorce, depression, war, and exploration.

In honor of Hemingway’s birthday, here are the best Ernest Hemingway books for unfamiliar readers and loyal fans alike.

Scribner The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Published in 1926, Hemingway’s first novel is now widely regarded as his best. Hemingway traveled to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona with the intention of producing a non-fiction book about bullfighting. Instead, the trips he made between 1923 and 1925 inspired his first major novel. Inspired by Hemingway’s band of expatriate friends, the characters grapple with the disillusionment felt by so many members of the “lost generation” against the hot-blooded backdrop of bullfighting.

Scribner The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

This 1952 novella is a classic choice for required reading in high school literature classes for a reason: Hemingway won a Pulitzer and a Nobel for the work. The Old Man and the Sea centers on an aging fisherman who faces an unlucky streak in the waters he knows so intimately. His expertise as a fisherman — and his mettle and determination—are put to the test when he encounters a merlin longer than his boat.

Scribner A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

While all of Ernest Hemingway’s books borrow liberally from his real-life experiences, this posthumously published memoir directly recounts the author’s time in Paris as a young man. Hemingway based the contents of the book — which features his interactions with figures such as Alice B. Toklas , F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald , James Joyce , and Gertrude Stein — on notebooks he recovered and transcribed in the 1950s.

Scribner A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

In 1958, Hemingway told The Paris Review that he “rewrote the ending to [A] Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times.” While he left some of the story’s grimmest potential endings on the cutting-room floor, the book still represents Hemingway’s starkest portrayal of World War I — and the disillusionment he and other members of his generation felt in its wake.

Audible Death in the Afternoon by Ernest Hemingway

In Death in the Afternoon, Hemingway’s love of bullfighting is a vehicle to explore cowardice, bravery, and the search for meaning. He presents the tradition as more than a sport, introducing readers to “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." While it might not be the most well-known Ernest Hemingway book, it’s almost certainly the most famous and respected book about the art of bullfighting.

Scribner For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Inspired by Hemingway’s time spent covering the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance, For Whom the Bell Tolls follows a young American attached to an antifascist guerilla unit. The book stands out for its detailed, realistic depiction of 20th-century warfare and is often ranked among the best examples of modern war literature.

Scribner By-Line by Ernest Hemingway

Today Hemingway is most famous for his works of fiction. But his novels and short stories borrowed heavily from his own experiences as a sportsman, world traveler, and war correspondent. Spanning the years 1920 to 1956, this collection showcases Hemingway's journalistic work for newspapers and magazines around the world and offers a glimpse into the world behind his fiction.

Scribner The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway

Why settle for one short story collection when you can have them all? Along with famous short stories such as "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "Hills Like White Elephants," "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," this definitive collection also includes a number of previously unpublished Hemingway pieces.

Scribner The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway

The Garden of Eden marks Hemingway’s second and final posthumously published book. The manuscript, which he began in 1946, remained unfinished upon his death in 1961 and wasn’t published until 1986. While some critics say Hemingway’s editor failed to capture the book Hemingway intended to write, the novel stands out for its surprisingly contemporary themes of androgyny and sexual fluidity.

Scribner To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

Reading recent reviews of To Have and Have Not, you’ll find plenty of warnings for folks unlikely to care for the 1937 novel — fans of the book’s film adaptations and people seeking happy endings, for starters — but it’s a must-read for any seasoned Hemingway fan. The fragmented narrative, which follows a man forced into running contraband between Cuba and Key West to save his family from poverty, combines high adventure with subtle emotional depth and occasional humor.

Rachel is a freelance writer, editor and content strategist and host of the hit podcast The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week. Her first book, "Been There, Done That: A Rousing History of Sex" came out in May 2022. She loves reading about weird history, sharing weird science facts and writing weird ghost stories.