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

Quick Facts

Ernest Hemingway’s Top 10 Books Ranked 📚

Hemingway was a prolific writer. He wrote at least 25 books during his lifetime, and likely more.

Emma Baldwin

Written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Upon his death, the Nobel Prize winner left behind more than 322 unfinished manuscripts for his family to go through, some of which have since been published. On this list, you’ll find ten of the best books that Ernest Hemingway wrote, all of which received varying degrees of positive and negative criticism during his life .

1. The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway Digital Art

‘ The Old Man and the Sea ‘ is commonly cited as Hemingway’s best novel. It was written in Cuba in 1951 and then published a year later. It was the last major fiction novel that Hemingway published during his life. The story focuses on a short period in the life of a Cuban fisherman named Santiago. This endearing, poor old man hooks and fights with an enormous Marlin for days before finally wrestling it out of the Gulf Stream. By the time he gets it back to shore, it has been devoured by sharks, leading him to regret the entire endeavor. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953.

2. A Farewell to Arms

This novel is set during the Italian campaign at the Italian front of World War I. It is a first-person story told from the perspective of Frederic Henry. During his time in Italy, a love affair between Henry and an English nurse named Catherine Barkley begins.

This novel is often considered to be the success that solidified Hemingway’s place in American literary history. The book is inspired by events in Hemingway’s own life and his time as an ambulance driver during WW1.

3. For Whom the Bell Tolls

‘ For Whom the Bell Tolls’  is considered by some to be Hemingway’s best novel. The novel tells the story of an American teacher called Robert Jordan, who, during the 1920s, gets involved in the Spanish Civil War as Hemingway did himself.

Their mission is to destroy a major bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia, and the novel follows the four days leading up to this event. He wrote the novel in Havana, Cuba, as well as in Key West, Florida, and Sun Valley, Idaho. 

4. The Sun Also Rises

This very popular novel describes the travels of Jake Barnes, Lady Brett Ashley, and other American and British expatriates who travel to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona. There, they watch the brutal running of the bulls.

By some, this book is Hemingway’s greatest work, even though it received less than stellar reviews when it came out.  Ernest Hemingway  was inspired to write this book after he took a trip to Spain in 1925.

This Hemingway book focuses on Gertrude Stein’s coined “lost generation”, which is a post-World War generation rife with disillusionment caused by the horrors of the World War and who are ready to move on from the traditions of the older generation.

5. A Moveable Feast

Hemingway’s memoir, ‘ A Moveable Feast’, was published in 1964. It tells of the years he spent as a journalist and writer in Paris in the 20s. In it, a reader can find references to a variety of famous figures and an account of Hemingway’s marriage to Hadley Richardson.

6. Complete Short Stories

Although not a novel, this collection of Hemingway’s short stories deserves to be on this list. In it, readers will find all of his best short fiction works, including ‘ The Snows of Kilimanjaro’ and ‘ Hills Like White Elephants.’

7. To Have and Have Not

This novel tells the story of Harry Morgan, a fisherman from Key West, Florida. This ordinary working man gets forced into the black market goods trade. He runs contraband between Cuba and Florida, but things only end up getting worse for him as he decides to swindle Chinese immigrants and gets involved in a murder.

8. Islands in the Stream

This novel was published posthumously in 1970. It was among the 332 finished and unfinished works that Hemingway left behind when he died. The book follows Thomas Hudson through the stages of his life. It is made up of three stories, or acts, that were retiled as “Bimini,” “Cuba,” and “At Sea”.

9. Death in the Afternoon

This is one of Hemingway’s non-fiction works. It describes the traditions of bullfighting in Spain, something that the writer observed personally. The book looks at the history of the sport as well as explores the elements of fear and courage that are involved.

10 . Green Hills of Africa

‘ Green Hills of Africa ‘ is another non-fiction book, Hemingway’s second. In it, he describes a month he spent on a safari in Africa with his wife, Pauline. It is separated into four parts, each of which has a different bearing on the story. He speaks about the time he spent hunting, meditates on the impact of various authors, and spends time talking about the landscape.

What is considered Ernest Hemingway’s best book?

‘ The Sun Also Rises ‘ is commonly considered to be one of Hemingway’s best novels. It describes the travels of American and British expatriates who venture to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona.

What is the best Hemingway book to start with?

‘ The Old Man and the Sea ‘ is often read first. It is short, easy to understand, and extremely effective. It was the last major work of fiction that Hemingway published during his life. The story focuses on a short period in the life of a Cuban fisherman named Santiago.

What is Hemingway’s greatest contribution to the world of literature?

His contributions include original short stories, novels, and a style of writing that inspired generations to come. Hemingway was also respected in journalism. One could argue that his greatest contribution is the “iceberg theory,” which influenced 21st-century literature.

What is Hemingway’s shortest book?

His shortest book is ‘ The Old Man and the Sea ‘. It is only 127 pages and tells a compelling and memorable story of an old fisherman, Santiago. Hemingway also wrote many more short stories, including the collections, ‘ The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories ‘, and  ‘The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories’

What did Hemingway write about?

Hemingway wrote about hunting, adventure, fishing, Africa, relationships, contemporary life, etc. He often included the theme of disillusionment in his work, as did many writers of the Lost Generation.

What was Hemingway’s best-selling book?

Hemingway’s best-selling book is ‘ A Farewell to Arms ‘. It is set during the Italian campaign of World War I. It is a first-person story told from the perspective of Frederic Henry.

Emma Baldwin

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

guest

Huh…so, you didn’t read any of these and outsourced all critical thinking to existing lists. I believe this is what people mean when they point to “cookie-cutter” content on the internet.

Vince

Pretty sure it’s “a different bearing on the story”.

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  • BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

14 Must-Read Ernest Hemingway Books

Incredible literary works, written in the most earnest (and Ernest) way.

ernest hemingway book covers on a bubbly copper/blue background

  • Photo Credit: Pawel Czerwinski / Unsplash

There are few writers more legendary than Ernest Hemingway. Beginning as a journalist, Hemingway exploded onto the literary scene in the wake of the First World War, telling stories of soldiers, bullfights, love, death, and fishing with the terseness of someone trained to watch column inches, but the symbolism and thematic density of a poet. The result was one of the most revered writers of the 20th century, a man whose own life reflected his work in often thrilling and sometimes tragic ways. 

An ambulance driver during World War I, Hemingway was present at the Allied invasion of Normandy in World War II. In between, he wrote some of the most celebrated novels and short stories in modern letters. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Despite these and many other accomplishments, however, Hemingway suffered from a grievous depression and, in 1961, in his home in Ketchum, Idaho, he took his own life with his favorite shotgun. 

Though Hemingway was gone, he left behind numerous books – those he had published during his lifetime, and those that remained to be published after his death – and his legacy remains one of the most robust in American letters. For those looking for a place to start with the legendary author, or those who are Hemingway fanatics who can’t get enough, these 14 books are must-reads, ranging from the author’s best-known works to early collections of short stories and vignettes that show the beginnings of a monumental talent. 

6 Fascinating Biographies on Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway Novels

Across the River and Into the Trees

Across the River and Into the Trees

By Ernest Hemingway

The last novel that Ernest Hemingway published before his death, Across the River and Into the Trees may today be less well-known than some of his other classics, but at the time of its publication it was the only one of his books to top the New York Times bestseller list.  

A story about facing death, Across the River and Into the Trees tells of a love affair between an Army officer and a much-younger Italian noblewoman at the end of the World War II. It was partly inspired by a trip that Hemingway himself took to Venice, a city that he loved, and has in turn inspired a movie adaptation starring Liv Schrieber. 

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The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises

Though Hemingway is renowned for both his short stories and his journalism, his greatest fame as a writer comes from his novels. And among these, few are as legendary as this “truly gripping” ( New York Times ) tale of the Lost Generation , of people damaged and wounded – literally and otherwise – by the Great War, who seek solace in Spain the 1920s.  

Read it to see why it is often considered Hemingway’s most important novel, and why the Wall Street Journal calls it “the ideal companion for troubled times.” 

The Torrents of Spring

The Torrents of Spring

While Hemingway is often seen as a “serious” writer, The Torrents of Spring shows another side of him, as he pens an early novella satirizing other writers and their literary pretensions. The Torrents of Spring is also a story about love, how it is found, how it is lost, and how fickle it can be.  

While it was initially rejected by Hemingway’s publishers, F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have praised it as a “masterpiece,” and it certainly shows a more humorous side of Hemingway’s writing than is present in many of his more famous stories. 

35 Must-Read Modern Classics

the old man and the sea book cover

The Old Man and the Sea

By Hemingway, Ernest

It is almost impossible to single out one particular story from Hemingway’s monumental oeuvre, but if one had to do so, The Old Man and the Sea might be his most legendary. The last major literary work released during Hemingway’s lifetime, The Old Man and the Sea won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 and was the only one of his works mentioned by name when he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.  

The story of an old fisherman’s attempts to catch a massive marlin is one of Hemingway’s most familiar, and no reading of his works would be complete without it. 

the old man and the sea book cover

For Whom the Bell Tolls

One of Hemingway’s most famous and important novels, For Whom the Bell Tolls is a tale of the Spanish Civil War, published in 1940, the same year he married war correspondent Martha Gellhorn and one year before the United States had officially entered World War II.  

Within just three years, it was adapted into a major motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman , and it has gone down in history as one of Hemingway’s best-known books, while also ensuring that John Donne’s 1624 verses from which it takes its title have become immortalized in the popular imagination. 

books and film

A Farewell to Arms

Hemingway’s first bestseller, A Farewell to Arms has been called “the premier American war novel” of the First World War. Like many of Hemingway’s works, it is based partly on his own experiences, in this case his time as an ambulance driver during World War I.  

It was adapted to the screen in 1932, starring Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes . Its story of the love between an American officer directing ambulance drivers for the Italian army and a nurse has become one of the most famous war stories of the 20th century. 

books and film

6 Necessary Fiction Books About World War I

To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not

One of Hemingway’s most controversial novels – and the first to be set in the United States – To Have and Have Not chronicles the lives of both the “Have’s” and the “Have Not’s” who make their homes in Florida’s Key West, a place where Hemingway himself lived.  

As the Great Depression forces working folks into desperation and crime, the book is interspersed with depictions of the lavish lifestyles led by the “Have’s” on their yachts. 

Islands in the Stream

Islands in the Stream

The first novel published posthumously after Hemingway’s death, Islands in the Stream was made up of what Hemingway had called a “sea trilogy” that he had been working on toward the end of his life. As such, the novel is broken up into three sections, set at different points in its protagonist’s life, and in different places, including Bimini, Cuba, and out at sea. Elements from the story echo some of Hemingway’s best-known books, including A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea . 

The Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden

When Hemingway took his own life, he left behind more than 300 manuscripts of various works in progress. Of these, the most ambitious was published much later as The Garden of Eden , a sprawling novel cataloguing five months in the lives of an American writer and his wife in the French Riviera.  

Though the book had to be edited together from several drafts left behind after Hemingway’s death, it is considered one of his boldest works, addressing gender roles and the creative process, and was included in Harold Bloom’s list of books comprising the Western literary canon . 

Ernest Hemingway Short Stories

Hills Like White Elephants

Hills Like White Elephants

Hemingway’s style is often described using what is known as “Iceberg Theory” – that the seemingly trivial facts of the story lie on the surface, while all the themes and symbolism take place out of sight.  

Few stories are a better example of this than “Hills Like White Elephants,” one of the writer’s most celebrated short stories, in which a couple’s discussion at a train station will have an enormous impact on their future. While the interpretations of the story are many, that it is one of Hemingway’s best-known tales is undeniable. 

Three Stories and Ten Poems

Three Stories and Ten Poems

Even before he published In Our Time , his first official short story collection, Hemingway had released this privately published assembly of tales and poems, initially limited to only around 300 copies.  

In and out of print ever since, Three Stories & Ten Poems showcases some of Hemingway’s earliest literary work, and is therefore invaluable to anyone who wants to see where the Nobel Prize-winning author got his start. 

22 Fantastic Short Books to Read in a Weekend

In Our Time

In Our Time

One of Hemingway’s earliest collections of short stories, In Our Time shows the author developing the “fibrous and athletic” ( New York Times ) grasp of language that would help him make his indelible mark on literary history.  

Across several short stories and vignettes – including a handful of Hemingway’s early Nick Adams stories – readers are treated to a glimpse into the development of a literary titan. Everything that would come to define Hemingway’s prodigious output has its roots here, from stories of war and bullfights to Hemingway’s unmistakable style of storytelling. 

Men Without Women

Men Without Women

Hemingway’s second major short story collection, Men Without Women, features some of the author’s most celebrated tales. 

Among them are “Hills Like White Elephants,” “The Undefeated,” “In Another Country,” and “The Killers,” which is not only one of Hemingway’s most oft-reprinted short stories, but has also been adapted several times to film, including in 1946, starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner , and again in 1964, starring Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Clu Gulager, John Cassavetes, and none other than former president (not yet president at the time) Ronald Reagan. 

8 Roaring 20s Books to Usher in the Next Era

Ernest Hemingway Nonfiction Books

Green Hills of Africa

Green Hills of Africa

First published in 1935, Green Hills of Africa lyrically explores Hemingway’s safari through East Africa with his wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, in December of 1933. Not only is Hemingway’s widely known fascination of big-game hunting featured in the novel, but it also features a seamless, somewhat social commentary on the lure of the hunt and the eventual destruction of a (not for long) untouched wilderness by man. 

As do many of his works, this one looks inward, using a beautiful display of imagery to illustrate his innermost thoughts and feelings of the world around him. 

A Moveable Feast

A Moveable Feast

While Hemingway may be best known as a novelist, he got his start in journalism, and his nonfiction is every bit as memorable and scintillating as his novels and short stories. A Moveable Feast is the most recognizable of these, a memoir of Hemingway’s time in Paris in the 1920s that was published after his death.  

Besides an unforgettable portrait of a city and a moment in time, A Moveable Feast also features anecdotes starring the numerous notable figures of the time whom Hemingway knew, including F. Scott Fitzgerald , Aleister Crowley, Gertrude Stein , James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and many more. 

Featured image: Pawel Czerwinski / Unsplash

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Ranked: The Best Hemingway Books Of All Time

Best Hemingway Books 0 Hero

By: Sean Tirman Published: Oct 26, 2023

By: Sean Tirman and Ethan Brehm Published: Oct 26, 2023

Contributors

best biographies of hemingway

In all likelihood, Ernest Hemingway will go down in history as one of the greatest writers of all time. And he’s certainly in the top five when it comes to American authors. He was also remarkably prolific, releasing at least 26 books throughout his life before his untimely suicide in 1961. He even won the Nobel Prize for writing in 1954, amongst a slew of other accolades. Still, with as many books as he authored, it can be hard to dissect the catalog to find the best of the best. But we’ve done the heavy lifting and ranked Ernest Hemingway’s greatest works of all time on the following list.

Best Hemingway Books Ranked

Death in the Afternoon

10. Death In The Afternoon

In Our Time

9. In Our Time

Men Without Women

8. Men Without Women

best biographies of hemingway

7. To Have and Have Not

best biographies of hemingway

6. Green Hills of Africa

A Moveable Feast

5. A Moveable Feast

For Whom the Bell Tolls

4. For Whom The Bell Tolls

The Old Man and the Sea

3. The Old Man and the Sea

The Sun Also Rises

2. The Sun Also Rises

best biographies of hemingway

1. A Farewell To Arms

Ernest hemingway’s life.

Few American authors have been written about as much as Hemingway, but still, there are aspects of his life that remain a bit of an enigma. Born in Oak Park, Illinois right before the turn of the century in 1899, Papa Hemingway became a newspaper reporter in Kansas City after high school before enlisting as an ambulance driver during World War I. Famous for his global residencies, which included Paris, Key West, Cuba, New York, and even Idaho, the author imbued his wealth of experiences into his work and his books often reflected the locales in which he resided.

A poster child for the 20th-century American mythos, Hemingway was a proponent of minimalistic prose, which he called “Iceberg Theory” –– a writing technique that focuses on giving bare-minimum details and allowing innate ideas and themes to shine through regardless. Aside from his consumption of cultures, Hemingway was also known for his four marriages, which produced three children. Over the course of his life, Hemingway suffered from alcoholism, injuries suffered from two plane crashes two days in a row, and general ennui. He ultimately took his own life in 1961 at 61 years of age.

Why Is Hemingway so Revered?

With subject matters influenced heavily by his personal experiences — war, love, humanity’s connection to the natural world, and so much more — Hemingway had a vast encyclopedic knowledge of the human experience, making it easy for just about anyone to relate to his works in some way or another. And his minimalistic, straightforward style of writing makes his stories remarkably approachable from a reading standpoint. You can spot Hemingway’s influence in countless pieces of fiction and non-fiction –– be it novels, television, or film –– that have come out over the past 100 years, and his global exploits have transcended literature itself, with even the worlds of liquor and fashion taking notes from the author.

Death in the Afternoon

Why It Made the Cut

  • Hemingway’s defining work on the subject, Death in the Afternoon is a non-fiction story examining the nuances of bullfighting.

Hemingway was a huge fan of bullfighting and had written about it several times throughout his career. But Death In The Afternoon is, undoubtedly, his defining work on the subject. Across its pages, he’s done a tremendous job of illustrating both the beauty and savageness of the sport. Not for the weak of heart, this non-fiction book told through the author’s own eyes is an often-brutal treatise that delves into the deepest corners of bullfighting and breaks it down not like a spectator event, but like a ballet between a man, an animal, and the thin piece of red cloth that separates them. Loaded from cover to cover with examinations of bravery and cowardice, heroism and tragedy, life and death — this is undoubtedly a book every man should read.

Pages: 496 Published: 1932 Genre: Non-Fiction

In Our Time

  • An easy-to-digest collection of some of the best short stories ever penned, In Our Time was Hemingway’s first published book.

Hemingway’s first book-length published work, In Our Time is also one of his most easily-digestible, due largely to the fact that it’s a collection of extremely short stories and vignettes. But don’t let the brevity of the tales between this work’s covers fool you — it’s a lot to unpack for the discerning reader, with a number of stories that are still considered some of the greatest ever penned. That includes the introduction of Nick Adams, a semi-autobiographical character who would become one of Hemingway’s signatures as the years passed. Interestingly, In Our Time works brilliantly as an introduction to the author, which is poetically appropriate if you ask us.

Pages: 160 Published: 1924 Genre: Short Stories

Men Without Women

  • Outdoing his previous collection of short stories, Men Without Women features wide-ranging subjects from war to sportsmanship to relationships.

Another short story collection published three years after his first release, Hemingway’s Men Without Women does a beautiful job of illustrating the author’s growth as an artist, but also retains the same straightforward prose and dedication to no-nonsense storytelling as his earlier work. Fourteen stories long, the subject matters within these pages range from war to sportsmanship and even contain a revisit of his Nick Adams character. Probably the most famous, unique, and esoteric story of the collection, however, is “Hills Like White Elephants.” There’s a pretty good chance you’ve read this subtle meditation on abortion at some time in your schooling, but we highly suggest revisiting it outside the confines of academia.

Pages: 160 Published: 1927 Genre: Short Stories

best biographies of hemingway

  • This fall from grace of an honest family man provides social commentary of 1930s Cuba.

There are a lot of thematic threads woven into Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not which are just as relevant today (or more) than they were when it was released in 1937. They include privilege, poverty, and the lengths to which people will go for their families. Of course, that’s hardly all there is to unpack in this tale — which follows protagonist Harry Morgan as he goes from struggling-but-honest family man to contraband-smuggling playboy. Laced with action, violence, and just the right amount of melodrama to keep things interesting without watering down its morality and brutality, this dark novel is an excellent read for the same types of folks who might binge-watch Breaking Bad .

Pages: 272 Published: 1937 Genre: Fiction

best biographies of hemingway

  • Mixing in autobiographical elements, this outdoors-focused piece of non-fiction is possibly the most intimate look at Hemingway from the man himself.

While all of Hemingway’s novels and short story collections have a few autobiographical elements mixed in, none of them give quite as deep an insight into the man himself as his works of non-fiction. And Green Hills of Africa might just be the most intimate look at who he is and what makes him tick. After all, Hemingway wouldn’t be Hemingway without big-game hunting. Undoubtedly, one of the best books for outdoorsmen ever penned, this memoir is a true-to-life example of just how wonderfully the author balances brutality and beauty, animalistic instinct and higher-thinking humanity, and life and death.

Pages: 304 Published: 1935 Genre: Non-Fiction

A Moveable Feast

  • A counterpoint to Green Hills of Africa, this memoir reflects on Hemingway’s younger self and his journey into the literary world of Paris in the ’20s.

While Green Hills of Africa shows one side of Hemingway, he was a complicated and multi-faceted man — meaning there’s not a single work of his (fiction or non-fiction) that really encapsulates him in his entirety. Take his works as a collection, however, and the image becomes clearer. That’s especially true if A Movable Feast is taken into account. This memoir, which serves as an opposite-side-of-the-spectrum bookend to Green Hills of Africa , largely concerns Hemingway’s younger self and his journey into the literary world of Paris in the 1920s. Those who have seen Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris will likely be familiar with some of the content. However, Hemingway’s take is a lot more approachable, personal, and a good deal less neurotic.

Pages: 181 Published: 1964 Genre: Memoir

For Whom the Bell Tolls

  • As one of the most important works in American fiction, this novel was inspired by the author’s journey to Spain to cover its civial war as a journalist in the ’30s.

Following the journey of a young American journalist as he becomes inextricably embroiled in the Spanish Civil War, For Whom The Bell Tolls is undeniably one of the most important works of American fiction ever published. However, in classic Hemingway fashion, it’s not entirely fictional. This is because, three years prior to the publishing of this work, the author traveled to Spain to cover the country’s civil war for the North American Newspaper Alliance . While we can safely assume not everything that takes place in this novel is autobiographical, his personal involvement in the conflict served to bring a hefty dose of realism to this equally bleak and hopeful work. This tale also serves to illustrate one of the writer’s finest talents: the ability to tell a compelling story without shoving obvious lessons down the throat of the reader.

Pages: 480 Published: 1940 Genre: Fiction

The Old Man and the Sea

  • One of the works that earned him his Nobel Prize, this story of a fisherman showcases some of Hemingway’s most accessible themes.

A staple of academic courses around the world, Hemingway’s novella, The Old Man and the Sea , is heralded as being one of the bigger reasons the author earned the Nobel Prize for literature. The story concerns a down-on-his-luck Cuban fisherman as he struggles in the fight of his life against a massive marlin he hooked off in the far reaches of the Gulf Stream. A bit on the heavier-handed side of metaphor, the lessons of this tale are more easily gleaned than some of the author’s other, more esoteric works. But its approachability and worldwide popularity across dozens of languages and hundreds of countries serve to show just how far-reaching and relateable Hemingway’s stories are. Reading this novella is practically a rite of passage for anyone with even a passing interest in literature — and rightfully so.

Pages: 128 Published: 1952 Genre: Novella

The Sun Also Rises

  • As one of his first fictional novels, this pos-WWI tale taps into the bleak and listless feeling of the period.

One of the author’s very first completed novel-length works, The Sun Also Rises is a bleak and bone-chillingly honest take on the post-WWI Lost Generation. Of course, it’s not entirely without hope, though the shimmers therein are certainly overshadowed by the novel’s larger themes of disillusionment, angst, and cultural self-destruction. It was a time of deep sorrow — and understandably so, as the Great War had taken 40 million lives — masked by self-indulgence, substance abuse, and listless wandering. And Hemingway captures the spirit of that time perfectly. For those who enjoy the prose of Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road , you’ll likely appreciate this predecessor.

Pages: 251 Published: 1926 Genre: Fiction

best biographies of hemingway

  • With an ending rewritten 39 times, Hemingway’s masterpiece was composed at a confluence in his life between hope and anguish.

Ernest Hemingway’s body of work is filled with absolutely brilliant tales across a spectrum of literature types, which makes it a nigh-impossible task to pick out one that stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. If there’s any sole contender for the throne, however, it has to be A Farewell To Arms — written when the author was young enough to still have hope and a fresh perspective, but not so young that he was naive about the state of the world and its potency for tragedy. It also serves to show just how dedicated Hemingway was to his writing, as (so the story goes) he rewrote the ending a whopping 39 times to make sure each and every word was exactly right. It’s that combination of raw talent and commitment to his craft that makes Ernest Hemingway one of the greatest writers of all time, American or otherwise.

Pages: 352 Published: 1929 Genre: Fiction

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Cover image for Ernest Hemingway: A New Life By James  M. Hutchisson

Ernest Hemingway

James M. Hutchisson

The Pennsylvania State University Press

$37.95 | Hardcover Edition ISBN: 978-0-271-07534-1

Available as an e-book

320 pages 7" × 10" 23 b&w illustrations 2016

A 2017 Choice Outstanding Academic Title

“The best single-volume Hemingway biography now available. Summing up: Essential.” —S. Miller, Choice
  • Description
  • Table of Contents
  • Sample Chapters

This is an examination of the writer through a new lens—one that more accurately captures Hemingway’s virtues as well as his flaws. Hutchisson situates Hemingway’s life and art in the defining contexts of the women he loved and lost, the places he held dear, and the specter of mental illness that haunted his family. This balanced portrait examines for the first time in full detail the legendary writer’s complex medical history and his struggle against clinical depression.

“Toward the end of James J. Hutchisson’s deftly written biography of Ernest Hemingway, we are reminded to ‘remember how difficult it was for him to be “Ernest Hemingway.”’ That’s something no reader of this well-researched book is likely to forget. Chapter after chapter, we see Hemingway in splendid complication as both the man and the artist.” —Sibbie O'Sullivan, Washington Post Book World
“Written in graceful, jargon-free prose, this compact biography will appeal broadly to general readers, students, and scholars.” —William Gargan, Library Journal
“Lovingly detailed. . . . Hutchisson celebrates Hemingway’s many career triumphs, but pays at least as much attention to his troubles.” —Robert Fulford, National Post
“Hutchisson has done the impossible: He has made an original contribution to the literature about the most written-about author in American letters.” —Ron Capshaw, National Review
“A perception exists that everything we need to know about the author of A Farewell to Arms and A Moveable Feast (among so many other great works) has been said ad infinitum. James M. Hutchisson’s Ernest Hemingway: A New Life proves how untrue that thought is. Nearly thirty years after a revisionary wave of biographies reimagined the man, Hutchisson arrives to reset the scales once more, giving us a fuller, more nuanced portrait than we’ve ever enjoyed. Every generation deserves its own Hemingway, and this is ours.” —Kirk Curnutt, board member of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society and author of Reading Hemingway’s “To Have and Have Not”: Glosses and Commentary
“A work of mature judgment and rigorous scholarship, lucidly, often elegantly written.” —Matthew Stewart, American Studies
“Building on newly available letters and other sources, this first new Hemingway biography in twenty years probes the author’s complicated relationships with his family, mentors, wives—and other women. Readers will appreciate this documented account of Hemingway’s fascinating life; those familiar with earlier biographies will find much fresh material in this accessible volume.” —Ellen Andrews Knodt, Pennsylvania State University, Abington
“ Ernest Hemingway: A New Life marks a refreshing change in approach. With the exception of Michael Reynolds’s multivolume biography, biographers since Carlos Baker have viewed Hemingway through various limited critical perspectives, resulting in life stories that differ markedly from one another. James Hutchisson’s A New Life offers an unbiased view of a complex personality.” —Robert E. Fleming, author of The Face in the Mirror: Hemingway’s Writers
“Like a masterful visual artist who takes a familiar subject and makes it fresh and interesting, James Hutchisson gives us an original and compelling biographical portrait of Ernest Hemingway. By examining patterns in Hemingway's life and providing additional context, Hutchisson enables us to see aspects of the writer’s life and art in a new light. The result is a balanced (if somewhat more sympathetic) view of Hemingway and a worthy counterpoint to previous biographies.” —Ruth Hawkins, author of Unbelievable Happiness and Final Sorrow: The Hemingway-Pfeiffer Marriage
“In the first Hemingway biography in two decades, Hutchisson draws on recent scholarship, newly available family and medical histories, and expanded editions of posthumous works to craft a balanced and lucid treatment of Hemingway that deftly charts his spatial and sexual geographies. Hutchisson remains attuned to the patterns in Hemingway’s life without sacrificing Hemingway’s complexity. He probes Hemingway’s contradictions without seeking to resolve them. This biography offers an invaluable aid to scholars of the frequently misunderstood late and posthumous works by examining Hemingway’s continuing efforts to transcend the boundaries of the styles and forms his critics had come to expect. This portrait of Hemingway shows a writer who never ceased to evolve.” —Julieann Veronica Ulin, Florida Atlantic University
“Hutchisson is extremely good at describing the demons that rode [Hemingway] and the suffering they caused him, and he strikes an admirable balance between excuse and generous empathy that culminates in his treatment of Hemingway’s final desperate act early on the morning of July 2, 1961.” —Chilton Williamson, Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture

James M. Hutchisson is Professor of American Literature at The Citadel and the author of The Rise of Sinclair Lewis , also published by Penn State University Press.

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 The Midwest: Childhood and Youth

2 Italy and Agnes von Kurowsky

3 Michigan, Chicago, and Hadley

5 Duff Twysden and The Sun Also Rises

6 Pauline, Key West, and A Farewell to Arms

7 Spain and Death in the Afternoon

8 Jane Mason and Africa

9 Martha Gellhorn and the Spanish Civil War

10 Cuba and For Whom the Bell Tolls

11 China and World War II

12 Mary, Adriana, and Across the River and into the Trees

13 Revisiting the Past: Africa and Paris

14 Dangerous Summers: Spain, Cuba, Idaho

Selected Bibliography

Ernest Hemingway is probably the most famous literary figure of all time. Some might argue that Hemingway wasn’t the greatest American writer, or even the creator of the best American book. But Ernest Hemingway certainly is the American writer. He was the perfect blend of literary talent and iconic personality, and the contours of his life have become deeply etched in the American popular consciousness—from his vibrant, fledgling self in patched jacket and sneakers on the boulevards of 1920s Paris to his white-bearded, barrel-chested eminence in khaki shorts and long-billed fishing cap off the waters of 1950s Cuba. “Papa” still walks among us and looms large on the literary horizon—just as he wanted it to be.

Hemingway is also one of the most written-about authors, in terms of both his life and his art. Yet, surprisingly, there has not been a single-volume biography of Hemingway published in almost twenty-five years. Most of his biographers have seemed to veer from one pole of critical approval to the other, either accepting wholesale—or with exaggerated winks and nods—the self-created legend of the hypermasculine hero, or disapproving of Hemingway by emphasizing the superficial image of him as a mean-spirited, alcoholic womanizer.

Carlos Baker’s “official” biography of 1969, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, laid the groundwork for all further writing on the author, but even Baker, as the authorized scribe, many times expressed true disdain for his subject. (Jack Hemingway, the author’s eldest son, once complained that Baker had made his father out to be “a son of a bitch.”) Jeffrey Meyers’s 1985 Hemingway: A Biography, while clearly written and accessible, is openly disapproving. Kenneth Lynn’s controversial 1987 psychobiography of Hemingway advances the fascinating argument that the greatest trauma of Hemingway’s life was a consistent pattern of gender confusion, but it does not do full justice to the other material of Hemingway’s life and work. James Mellow’s 1992 book reads nearly everything that Hemingway wrote in the context of the homoeroticism within Hemingway’s circle. Unlike previous biographers, I see Hemingway as someone who became many things to many people—sometimes opposite things. He was the war hero, the foreign correspondent, the expatriate, the consummate artist, the marlin fisherman and lion hunter, the womanizer, the drinker, the father and husband, the overbearing egotist, the tragic figure whose thoughts of self-destruction trailed him for nearly his entire life.

Hemingway’s keystone subject was violent death. Plagued by depression and a history of mental illness in his family, Hemingway fought constantly against the insidious slow descent of what he called “the black ass,” which could envelop him in an instant in a fog of despair. The adventuring, the risk taking, the life lived large, was collectively a way of avoiding the dark places that he tried to steer clear of in his life, so that he could explore them with some measure of safety in his art. His writing was a means of connecting with deep, raw emotion; to him, this meant being truthful about what is real—true to what is. The dark call to die, yet the insistence upon continuing, like the offering and withdrawing of emotion in his fiction, is an essential rhythm of Hemingway’s life and art, just as are the silences that sit in his short, declarative sentences—a kind of concession to dread and, ultimately, mortality. It might not be too much to say that he was in some ways a nexus for death, for among the people whom he became close to, or who were part of his family, many were suicides. The psychic terrain that he lived in must therefore have been very hard for him to navigate while still remaining sane.

It is often said that one of Hemingway’s best fictional creations was Ernest Hemingway himself. But what has not been traced through his life and work is how he discovered (or created) different identities through his writing, or how he used his writing to try to reconcile the contradictory elements within himself. I thus tend to see Hemingway more sympathetically than many earlier writers have; I believe he thought that if he could see himself clean and whole—what he thought of as the “true gen”—his writing might be useful to others who also lived their lives as journeys into themselves. Like most people, Hemingway changed over the course of his life. He was not the static figure that he has often been made out to be.

Hemingway had unusually high standards for his work, for others’ work, and for others’ friendships. So great a talent as his, and the concurrent fame and celebrity status that accompanied it, created huge difficulties in his personal life that he could never overcome, although he tried mightily to do so. Having the mantle of fame put on his shoulders while he was so young, he was always looking over his shoulder at the competition. He therefore developed a competitive streak that often made it impossible for him to praise fellow writers or to feel that anybody was as good a writer as he was. His relationships were often tempestuous, like a summer storm crossing the bay. His high standards created an almost suffocating anxiety in him; it is actually something of a miracle that he survived that pressure as long as he did. He also had a deeply ingrained sense of character, which he often, all too humanly, failed to live up to. This seems forgivable in most people, but many found it unforgivable in Hemingway. As Edmund Wilson once snidely put it, Hemingway had an inviolable code of honor that he was always breaking.

Hemingway also had an insecurity about all things physical. He was perpetually trying to impress people with his athletic skill, his sexual prowess, his stamina, his muscle tone, and his ability to participate competitively in physically challenging activities like sportfishing and boxing. His obsession with the body led him to explore the physical in his fiction in ways that no one had ever done before, although that interest did not come into focus until after the period of his greatest productivity, 1926–1940. After 1940, he pondered this theme in his fiction—though he could never push through and actually publish most of this work, perhaps for the very reasons that drove his own physical insecurities. His obsession with the physical also probably accounted for his often harsh treatment of his wives and lovers, since all of those relationships—with the exception of his first wife, Hadley—were based largely on sexual attraction. His letters to his wives and wives-to-be are among the most passionate and heartfelt in all of literary history. He thought that love was both the sine qua non of human existence and the greatest deceiver. When his marriages collapsed, he spun downward each time, powerlessly caught in an inner cyclone of guilt, anxiety, and even grief. By the time his emotions were spent, he was spiritually and psychically empty, hollowed out like a drum.

In this book, I pursue several specific angles of entry into understanding Hemingway. One is the pattern of how his writing was influenced by women and by place. I offer an organized look at the sequence of results produced in his work by his various wives, lovers, and mistresses. Each major novel gestated in Hemingway’s consciousness and was brought to fruition during a relationship—whether sexual or not—with a woman. Hemingway’s relationships with women were also inextricably bound to geographic locale. The battlefield seems to have been the most recurrent setting, but he also adopted a series of spiritual homes that became stimuli to creativity—most of all Spain, which he said in the second sentence of The Dangerous Summer that he loved more than any place on earth.

I also emphasize Hemingway’s interest in medicine (his father was a physician, and his third son became one) and analyze his complex medical profile. I take into account his family health history, his recurrent vision problems, and the pattern of accidents, injuries, and illnesses that plagued him throughout his life. As John Dos Passos once said, he never knew an athletic, vigorous man who spent as much time in bed as Hemingway did. Hemingway had a complicated medical history that helps explain his emotions and attitudes, his public behavior, his fictional themes and preoccupations, and his ability or inability to write. Medical records among his personal papers show that for much of his life Hemingway took medications that conflicted chemically with one another and eventually produced disastrous results. It is my strong belief that it was this condition, much more than the idea that he was felled by fame or corrupted by the allure of celebrity, that propelled him down the slope into suicide at the end of his life. With his family history of mental illness, it is not surprising that Hemingway was obsessed with suicides, real and imagined. Trying to stare down the dark facts of a difficult world was something that had been part of him since youth.

The portrait of Hemingway that emerges in this book is neither tragic nor heroic, but is instead a balanced assessment that shows the ambition that drove him, and the anxieties, both real and imagined, that destroyed him.

Biography & Memoir

General Interest

Also of Interest

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The Rise of Sinclair Lewis, 1920–1930

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The 10 best Ernest Hemingway books, according to Goodreads readers

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  • Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is the master of understated, spare prose.
  • Below are Ernest Hemingway's 10 most popular books, according to Goodreads readers .
  • Readers especially love " The Old Man and the Sea ," " The Sun Also Rises ," and " A Farewell to Arms ."

Insider Today

When you think of Ernest Hemingway — journalist, novelist, bullfighting aficionado — you probably think of the lean, understated prose that defines many American classics. 

The opening line of the book that helped him win the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature, " The Old Man and the Sea ," reads as a status report: "He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish." Nicknamed the "iceberg theory" by Hemingway, much of his novels' meatiness (their nuances, their themes) lies looming beneath the surface. (For a man who wrote that he gets over writer's block by sitting down and writing the truest sentence that you know," this isn't altogether surprising.)

If you're looking for where to start in the Hemingway canon, know that you can't really go wrong. After reading the manuscript for " For Whom The Bell Tolls ," the famed editor Maxwell Perkins wrote Hemingway to say, "if the function of a writer is to reveal reality, no one ever so completely performed it." And William Faulkner, often considered one of the best American writers of all time, wrote that "time may show ["The Old Man and the Sea"] to be the best single piece of any of us, I mean his and my contemporaries."

To make diving into Hemingway's work a little easier, we've compiled a ranking of the 10 most popular Hemingway books, according to Goodreads reviewers.

The 10 most popular Ernest Hemingway books, according to Goodreads:

Descriptions provided by Amazon and lightly edited for clarity.

'The Old Man and the Sea'

best biographies of hemingway

"The Old Man and the Sea," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $11.39

"The Old Man and the Sea" is one of Hemingway's most enduring works. Told in language of great simplicity and power, it's 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. Here Hemingway recasts, in strikingly contemporary style, the classic theme of courage in the face of defeat, and of personal triumph won from loss.

'The Sun Also Rises'

best biographies of hemingway

" The Sun Also Rises," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.72

A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, this novel introduces two of Hemingway's most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions.

'A Farewell to Arms'

best biographies of hemingway

"A Farewell to Arms," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.99

Written when Ernest Hemingway was 30 years old and lauded as the best American novel to emerge from World War I, "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 — 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.

'For Whom the Bell Tolls'

best biographies of hemingway

"For Whom the Bell Tolls," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.47

Published in 1940, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain. 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.

'A Moveable Feast'

best biographies of hemingway

"A Moveable Feast," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $13

Published posthumously in 1964, Hemingway's memoir of Paris in the 1920s, "A Moveable Feast," remains one of his most enduring works. This restored edition includes the original manuscript, never-before-published Paris sketches, and irreverent portraits of literary luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford.

'The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories'

best biographies of hemingway

"The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.72

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; "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," a "brilliant fusion of personal observation, hearsay and invention," wrote Hemingway's biographer, Carlos Baker; and the title story itself, of which Hemingway said: "I put all the true stuff in," with enough material, he boasted, to fill four novels. 

Beautiful in their simplicity, startling in their originality, and unsurpassed in their craftsmanship, the stories in this volume highlight one of America's master storytellers at the top of his form.

'The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway'

best biographies of hemingway

"The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $17.90

The complete, authoritative collection of Ernest Hemingway's short fiction, including classic stories like "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," along with seven previously unpublished stories.

'To Have and Have Not'

best biographies of hemingway

"To Have and Have Not," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.64

"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.

In this harshly realistic, yet oddly tender and wise novel, Hemingway perceptively delineates the personal struggles of both the "haves" and the "have nots" and creates one of the most subtle and moving portraits of a love affair in his oeuvre.

'In Our Time'

best biographies of hemingway

"In Our Time," available on Amazon and Bookshop , from $7.99

"In Our Time" is Ernest Hemingway's first collection of short stories, published in 1925. Its title is derived from the English Book of Common Prayer, "Give peace in our time, O Lord". The collection's publication history was complex. 

The stories' themes – of alienation, loss, grief, separation – continue the work Hemingway began with the vignettes, which include descriptions of acts of war, bullfighting, and current events.

'Islands in the Stream'

best biographies of hemingway

"Islands in the Stream," available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $15.79

First published in 1970, nine years after Hemingway's death, 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.

'Men Without Women'

best biographies of hemingway

" Men Without Women," available at Amazon and Bookshop , from $14.72

First published in 1927, "Men Without Women" represents some of Hemingway's most important and compelling early writing. In these 14 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. 

best biographies of hemingway

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Biography of Ernest Hemingway, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize Winning Writer

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Becoming a writer, life in paris, getting published, back to the u.s., the spanish civil war, world war ii, the pulitzer and nobel prizes, decline and death.

  • B.A., English Literature, University of Houston

Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899–July 2, 1961) is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Best known for his novels and short stories, he was also an accomplished journalist and war correspondent. Hemingway's trademark prose style—simple and spare—influenced a generation of writers.

Fast Facts: Ernest Hemingway

  • Known For : Journalist and member of the Lost Generation group of writers who won the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Born : July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois
  • Parents : Grace Hall Hemingway and Clarence ("Ed") Edmonds Hemingway
  • Died : July 2, 1961 in Ketchum, Idaho
  • Education : Oak Park High School
  • Published Works : The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls, the Old Man and the Sea, A Moveable Feast
  • Spouse(s) : Hadley Richardson (m. 1921–1927), Pauline Pfeiffer (1927–1939), Martha Gellhorn (1940–1945), Mary Welsh (1946–1961)
  • Children : With Hadley Richardson: John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway ("Jack" 1923–2000); with Pauline Pfeiffer: Patrick (b. 1928), Gregory ("Gig" 1931–2001)

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, the second child born to Grace Hall Hemingway and Clarence ("Ed") Edmonds Hemingway. Ed was a general medical practitioner and Grace a would-be opera singer turned music teacher.

Hemingway's parents reportedly had an unconventional arrangement, in which Grace, an ardent feminist, would agree to marry Ed only if he could assure her she would not be responsible for the housework or cooking. Ed acquiesced; in addition to his busy medical practice, he ran the household, managed the servants, and even cooked meals when the need arose.

Ernest Hemingway grew up with four sisters; his much-longed-for brother did not arrive until Ernest was 15 years old. Young Ernest enjoyed family vacations at a cottage in northern Michigan where he developed a love of the outdoors and learned hunting and fishing from his father. His mother, who insisted that all of her children learn to play an instrument, instilled in him an appreciation of the arts.

In high school, Hemingway co-edited the school newspaper and competed on the football and swim teams. Fond of impromptu boxing matches with his friends, Hemingway also played cello in the school orchestra. He graduated from Oak Park High School in 1917.

Hired by the Kansas City Star in 1917 as a reporter covering the police beat, Hemingway—obligated to adhere to the newspaper's style guidelines—began to develop the succinct, simple style of writing that would become his trademark. That style was a dramatic departure from the ornate prose that dominated literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

After six months in Kansas City, Hemingway longed for adventure. Ineligible for military service due to poor eyesight, he volunteered in 1918 as an ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Europe. In July of that year, while on duty in Italy, Hemingway was severely injured by an exploding mortar shell. His legs were peppered by more than 200 shell fragments, a painful and debilitating injury that required several surgeries.

As the first American to have survived being wounded in Italy in World War I , Hemingway was awarded a medal from the Italian government.

While recovering from his wounds at a hospital in Milan, Hemingway met and fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse with the American Red Cross . He and Agnes made plans to marry once he had earned enough money.

After the war ended in November 1918, Hemingway returned to the United States to look for a job, but the wedding was not to be. Hemingway received a letter from Agnes in March 1919, breaking off the relationship. Devastated, he became depressed and rarely left the house.

Hemingway spent a year at his parents' home, recovering from wounds both physical and emotional. In early 1920, mostly recovered and eager to be employed, Hemingway got a job in Toronto helping a woman care for her disabled son. There he met the features editor of the Toronto Star Weekly , which hired him as a feature writer.

In fall of that year, he moved to Chicago and became a writer for  The Cooperative Commonwealth , a monthly magazine, while still working for the Star .

Hemingway, however, longed to write fiction. He began submitting short stories to magazines, but they were repeatedly rejected. Soon, however, Hemingway had reason for hope. Through mutual friends, Hemingway met novelist Sherwood Anderson, who was impressed by Hemingway's short stories and encouraged him to pursue a career in writing.

Hemingway also met the woman who would become his first wife: Hadley Richardson. A native of St. Louis, Richardson had come to Chicago to visit friends after the death of her mother. She managed to support herself with a small trust fund left to her by her mother. The pair married in September 1921.

Sherwood Anderson, just back from a trip to Europe, urged the newly married couple to move to Paris, where he believed a writer's talent could flourish. He furnished the Hemingways with letters of introduction to American expatriate poet Ezra Pound and modernist writer Gertrude Stein . They set sail from New York in December 1921.

The Hemingways found an inexpensive apartment in a working-class district in Paris. They lived on Hadley's inheritance and Hemingway's income from the Toronto Star Weekly , which employed him as a foreign correspondent. Hemingway also rented out a small hotel room to use as his workplace.

There, in a burst of productivity, Hemingway filled one notebook after another with stories, poems, and accounts of his childhood trips to Michigan.

Hemingway finally garnered an invitation to the salon of Gertrude Stein, with whom he later developed a deep friendship. Stein's home in Paris had become a meeting place for various artists and writers of the era, with Stein acting as a mentor to several prominent writers.

Stein promoted the simplification of both prose and poetry as a backlash to the elaborate style of writing seen in past decades. Hemingway took her suggestions to heart and later credited Stein for having taught him valuable lessons that influenced his writing style.

Hemingway and Stein belonged to the group of American expatriate writers in 1920s Paris who came to be known as the " Lost Generation ." These writers had become disillusioned with traditional American values following World War I; their work often reflected their sense of futility and despair. Other writers in this group included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and John Dos Passos.

In December 1922, Hemingway endured what might be considered a writer's worst nightmare. His wife, traveling by train to meet him for a holiday, lost a valise filled with a large portion of his recent work, including carbon copies. The papers were never found.

In 1923, several of Hemingway's poems and stories were accepted for publication in two American literary magazines, Poetry and The Little Review . In the summer of that year, Hemingway's first book, "Three Stories and Ten Poems," was published by an American-owned Paris publishing house.

On a trip to Spain in the summer of 1923, Hemingway witnessed his first bullfight. He wrote of bullfighting in the Star , seeming to condemn the sport and romanticize it at the same time. On another excursion to Spain, Hemingway covered the traditional "running of the bulls" at Pamplona, during which young men—courting death or, at the very least, injury—ran through town pursued by a throng of angry bulls.

The Hemingways returned to Toronto for the birth of their son. John Hadley Hemingway (nicknamed "Bumby") was born October 10, 1923. They returned to Paris in January 1924, where Hemingway continued to work on a new collection of short stories, later published in the book "In Our Time."

Hemingway returned to Spain to work on his upcoming novel set in Spain: "The Sun Also Rises." The book was published in 1926, to mostly good reviews.

Yet Hemingway's marriage was in turmoil. He had begun an affair in 1925 with American journalist Pauline Pfeiffer, who worked for the Paris Vogue . The Hemingways divorced in January 1927; Pfeiffer and Hemingway married in May of that year. Hadley later remarried and returned to Chicago with Bumby in 1934.

In 1928, Hemingway and his second wife returned to the United States to live. In June 1928, Pauline gave birth to son Patrick in Kansas City. A second son, Gregory, would be born in 1931. The Hemingways rented a house in Key West, Florida, where Hemingway worked on his latest book, "A Farewell to Arms," based upon his World War I experiences.

In December 1928, Hemingway received shocking news—his father, despondent over mounting health and financial problems, had shot himself to death. Hemingway, who'd had a strained relationship with his parents, reconciled with his mother after his father's suicide and helped support her financially.

In May 1928, Scribner's Magazine published its first installment of "A Farewell to Arms." It was well-received; however, the second and third installments, deemed profane and sexually explicit, were banned from newsstands in Boston. Such criticism only served to boost sales when the entire book was published in September 1929.

The early 1930s proved to be a productive (if not always successful) time for Hemingway. Fascinated by bullfighting, he traveled to Spain to do research for the non-fiction book, "Death in the Afternoon." It was published in 1932 to generally poor reviews and was followed by several less-than-successful short story collections.

Ever the adventurer, Hemingway traveled to Africa on a shooting safari in November 1933. Although the trip was somewhat disastrous—Hemingway clashed with his companions and later became ill with dysentery—it provided him with ample material for a short story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," as well as a non-fiction book, "Green Hills of Africa."

While Hemingway was on a hunting and fishing trip in the United States in the summer of 1936, the Spanish Civil War began. A supporter of the loyalist (anti-Fascist) forces, Hemingway donated money for ambulances. He also signed on as a journalist to cover the conflict for a group of American newspapers and became involved in making a documentary. While in Spain, Hemingway began an affair with Martha Gellhorn, an American journalist and documentarian.

Weary of her husband's adulterous ways, Pauline took her sons and left Key West in December 1939. Only months after she divorced Hemingway, he married Martha Gellhorn in November 1940.

Hemingway and Gellhorn rented a farmhouse in Cuba just outside of Havana, where both could work on their writing. Traveling between Cuba and Key West, Hemingway wrote one of his most popular novels: "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

A fictionalized account of the Spanish Civil War, the book was published in October 1940 and became a bestseller. Despite being named the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1941, the book did not win because the president of Columbia University (which bestowed the award) vetoed the decision.

As Martha's reputation as a journalist grew, she earned assignments around the globe, leaving Hemingway resentful of her long absences. But soon, they would both be globetrotting. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, both Hemingway and Gellhorn signed on as war correspondents.

Hemingway was allowed on board a troop transport ship, from which he was able to watch the D-day invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

While in London during the war, Hemingway began an affair with the woman who would become his fourth wife—journalist Mary Welsh. Gellhorn learned of the affair and divorced Hemingway in 1945. He and Welsh married in 1946. They alternated between homes in Cuba and Idaho.

In January 1951, Hemingway began writing a book that would become one of his most celebrated works: " The Old Man and the Sea ." A bestseller, the novella also won Hemingway his long-awaited Pulitzer Prize in 1953.

The Hemingways traveled extensively but were often the victims of bad luck. They were involved in two plane crashes in Africa during one trip in 1953. Hemingway was severely injured, sustaining internal and head injuries as well as burns. Some newspapers erroneously reported that he had died in the second crash.

In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the career-topping Nobel Prize for literature.

In January 1959, the Hemingways moved from Cuba to Ketchum, Idaho. Hemingway, now nearly 60 years old, had suffered for several years with high blood pressure and the effects of years of heavy drinking. He had also become moody and depressed and appeared to be deteriorating mentally.

In November 1960, Hemingway was admitted to the Mayo Clinic for treatment of his physical and mental symptoms. He received electroshock therapy for his depression and was sent home after a two-month stay. Hemingway became further depressed when he realized he was unable to write after the treatments.

After three suicide attempts, Hemingway was readmitted to the Mayo Clinic and given more shock treatments. Although his wife protested, he convinced his doctors he was well enough to go home. Only days after being discharged from the hospital, Hemingway shot himself in the head in his Ketchum home early on the morning of July 2, 1961. He died instantly.

A larger-than-life figure, Hemingway thrived on high adventure, from safaris and bullfights to wartime journalism and adulterous affairs, communicating that to his readers in an immediately recognizable spare, staccato format. Hemingway is among the most prominent and influential of the "Lost Generation" of expatriate writers who lived in Paris in the 1920s.

Known affectionately as "Papa Hemingway," he was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in literature, and several of his books were made into movies. 

  • Dearborn, Mary V. "Ernest Hemingway: A Biography." New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2017.
  • Hemingway, Ernest. "Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition." New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.
  • Henderson, Paul. "Hemingway's Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961." New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
  • Hutchisson, James M. "Ernest Hemingway: A New Life." University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2016.
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Ernest Hemingway: A Biography

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Ernest Hemingway: A Biography Hardcover – Deckle Edge, May 16, 2017

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  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf; First Edition (May 16, 2017)
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Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American novelist and journalist who authored fifteen books.

He moved to Paris in the 1920s. “The only way they could have an interesting life is by being poor in Paris, rather than poor in the US.” Yale English professor Wai Chee Dimock on the best books on Hemingway in Paris . “There were all these different writers in Paris, like [James] Joyce and [Ezra] Pound, so they were aware of what other people were doing. That was a tremendous spur, especially to Hemingway. There was also experimentation in the visual arts.”

“Hemingway basically changed the nature of the American story; although his macho side has caused him to fall out of vogue, I think his novels will actually prove to last a long, long time – even though he may have created stereotypes that people treat with some scorn.” Scott Turow on the best legal novels.

“Hemingway obviously thought war was a great thing. Outside war, he liked hunting, fishing and shooting. Killing things was his thing and a war was a natural environment for him. That’s not to say that he thinks that war is an unmitigated good. For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms show the human cost of war as well, and the political cost of war, and the futility of it.” Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford Kate McLoughlin on the best war writing .

Hemingway won a Pulitzer in 1953 and the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year.

As a great of 20th-century American literature , Hemingway has been recommended many times on Five Books.

Books by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway Boxed Set by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway Boxed Set

By ernest hemingway.

A great place to start if you're new to Hemingway or try Hemingway's short stories .

Read expert recommendations

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises

“Many people don’t appreciate what a big commitment writing this novel was for Hemingway. He was used to writing short stories. It meant he had to spend a lot of time on one book that could have been spent more profitably writing short stories. Like many of Hemingway’s later novels, it is stitched together from shorter pieces – in this case, what he’d already written about Pamplona…It can be summed up by the phrase ‘grace under pressure’, and looks at the code of ethics that emerges from bullfighting. It starts in Paris and then goes to Spain. The main event is a bullfight in Pamplona. The main characters are a group of expatriates, including a Jewish man, Robert Cohn, who was a boxing champion at Princeton. The narrator, Jake Barnes, was injured in World War One and his impotence is strongly suggested.” Read more...

The best books on Hemingway in Paris

Wai Chee Dimock , Literary Scholar

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast

“We think of Hemingway as an American writer, but much of his writing is set outside of the United States, just as much of his life was set outside of the United States… A Moveable Feast takes place in Paris. It’s Hemingway’s memoir of the time he spent there with his first wife and it was stitched together by his last wife. It gives you the sense that he yearns for his first wife and the time when they were young together in France. Very often transnational literature is concerned with abrogating an implicit border of belonging. And very often it concerns the question: Does one have the right to be where one is or where one wishes to be? But in A Moveable Feast one never gets the sense that Hemingway questions whether he can or should be in Paris. There seem to be no visa issues or racial questions. Perhaps there is a sense of entitlement to the expatriate experience that the rest of transnational literature lacks. At the same time, it’s a book about a border that cannot be crossed—the border between past and present. Hemingway is reaching back into his past. It turns out even our most manly of writers can be wistful.” Read more...

The Best Transnational Literature

Mohsin Hamid , Novelist

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea

“I taught this book to my students during the economic sanctions. And I feel like it gave me some kind of strength to continue. When I read about the struggle of the old man and the blood running from his hands because of the heat of the rope, I would always think, one day we will make it. At that time I had to work three jobs just to make ends meet. I thought I will struggle on and in the end things will come out fine, but they didn’t. We were invaded and our lives were shattered and people changed.” Read more...

The best books on Life in Iraq During the Invasion

May Witwit , Literary Scholar

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell To Arms

“For most of the book I thought I liked it less than For Whom the Bell Tolls. I didn’t think it would place in my pantheon of novels-that-I-love. Then I read the ending. I’m not going to tell you much, but let me just say that the ending is one of the most spectacular pieces of writing. It’s mind-blowing. So, so good. And the writing is just… virtuosic. It’s like listening to Mozart. Incredible.” Read more...

The Best First World War Novels

Alice Winn , Novelist

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition by Ernest Hemingway

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition

When I read Ernest Hemingway’s [short story] “Big Two-Hearted River”, I felt I was learning not only about Nick Adams’s interior but also about fly fishing.

Jim Shepard on the best Short Stories

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

For Whom the Bell Tolls

For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms show the human cost of war as well, and the political cost of war, and the futility of it.

The Best War Writing recommended by Kate McLoughlin

Interviews where books by Ernest Hemingway were recommended

The best first world war novels , recommended by alice winn.

The Best First World War Novels - Regeneration by Pat Barker

Regeneration by Pat Barker

The Best First World War Novels - A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

The Best First World War Novels - Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

The Best First World War Novels - All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Best First World War Novels - At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis

At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis

There are dozens of novels about the First World War, many of them well worth your time. Here, Alice Winn—author of In Memoriam , a bestselling story of forbidden love between two young soldiers—selects five of the very best, including autobiographical fiction by former officers and historical novels that bring humanity to the horror of the Great War.

The best books on Life in Iraq During the Invasion , recommended by May Witwit

The best books on Life in Iraq During the Invasion - My Year in Iraq by L Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell

My Year in Iraq by L Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell

The assassination attempts against president saddam hussein by barzan al-tikriti.

The best books on Life in Iraq During the Invasion - Cultural Cleansing in Iraq by Raymond W Baker, Shereen T Ismael, Tareq Y Ismael

Cultural Cleansing in Iraq by Raymond W Baker, Shereen T Ismael, Tareq Y Ismael

The best books on Life in Iraq During the Invasion - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The best books on Life in Iraq During the Invasion - A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Iraqi academic May Witwit tells of the horrors of US-occupied Iraq: “We were being shot at, and for three days a body lay at my front gate and nobody dared to move him”

The Best Transnational Literature , recommended by Mohsin Hamid

The Best Transnational Literature - No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe

The Best Transnational Literature - A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

The Best Transnational Literature - Meatless Days: A Memoir by Sara Suleri

Meatless Days: A Memoir by Sara Suleri

The Best Transnational Literature - The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

The Best Transnational Literature - Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

Beleaguered ‘citizens of nowhere’ will be pleased to know they have their own literary genre. For anyone who has ever wondered where they belong, or why, when you leave your home country, it’s never the same when you return, here are the best five books to read—including some by the greatest authors of the 20th century.

The best books on Hemingway in Paris , recommended by Wai Chee Dimock

The best books on Hemingway in Paris - The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

The best books on Hemingway in Paris - A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

The Autobiography of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein

The best books on Hemingway in Paris - The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

The Book of Salt by Monique Truong

The best books on Hemingway in Paris - The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain

The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain

Paris in the 1920s was a creative melting pot, the haunt of Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, F Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce. The Yale English professor gives us a feel for what it was like to be there

The best books on Love, War, and Longing , recommended by Janine di Giovanni

The best books on Love - The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth

The best books on Love - A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

The Last Time I Saw Paris by Elliot Paul

The best books on Love - Travels with Myself and Another by Martha Gellhorn

Travels with Myself and Another by Martha Gellhorn

The best books on Love - The Odyssey by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson

The Odyssey by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson

War reporter tells us that her life is permeated with sense of loss and longing. She quotes her heroine Martha Gellhorn: “I have a sudden notion of why history is such a mess. Human beings do not live long enough”

best biographies of hemingway

Hemingway Boxed Set by Ernest Hemingway

best biographies of hemingway

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© Five Books 2024

Ernest Hemingway

Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is seen as one of the great American 20th century novelists, and is known for works like 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'The Old Man and the Sea.'

portrait of ernest hemingway in rome

(1899-1961)

Who Was Ernest Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway served in World War I and worked in journalism before publishing his story collection In Our Time . He was renowned for novels like The Sun Also Rises , A Farewell to Arms , For Whom the Bell Tolls and The Old Man and the Sea , which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize. He committed suicide on July 2, 1961, in Ketchum, Idaho.

Early Life and Career

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero (now in Oak Park), Illinois. Clarence and Grace Hemingway raised their son in this conservative suburb of Chicago, but the family also spent a great deal of time in northern Michigan, where they had a cabin. It was there that the future sportsman learned to hunt, fish and appreciate the outdoors.

In high school, Hemingway worked on his school newspaper, Trapeze and Tabula , writing primarily about sports. Immediately after graduation, the budding journalist went to work for the Kansas City Star , gaining experience that would later influence his distinctively stripped-down prose style.

He once said, "On the Star you were forced to learn to write a simple declarative sentence. This is useful to anyone. Newspaper work will not harm a young writer and could help him if he gets out of it in time."

Military Experience

In 1918, Hemingway went overseas to serve in World War I as an ambulance driver in the Italian Army. For his service, he was awarded the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery, but soon sustained injuries that landed him in a hospital in Milan.

There he met a nurse named Agnes von Kurowsky, who soon accepted his proposal of marriage, but later left him for another man. This devastated the young writer but provided fodder for his works "A Very Short Story" and, more famously, A Farewell to Arms .

Still nursing his injury and recovering from the brutalities of war at the young age of 20, he returned to the United States and spent time in northern Michigan before taking a job at the Toronto Star .

It was in Chicago that Hemingway met Hadley Richardson, the woman who would become his first wife. The couple married and quickly moved to Paris, where Hemingway worked as a foreign correspondent for the Star .

Life in Europe

In 1925, the couple, joining a group of British and American expatriates, took a trip to the festival that would later provide the basis of Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises . The novel is widely considered Hemingway's greatest work, artfully examining the postwar disillusionment of his generation.

Soon after the publication of The Sun Also Rises , Hemingway and Hadley divorced, due in part to his affair with a woman named Pauline Pfeiffer, who would become Hemingway's second wife shortly after his divorce from Hadley was finalized. The author continued to work on his book of short stories, Men Without Women.

Critical Acclaim

Soon, Pauline became pregnant and the couple decided to move back to America. After the birth of their son Patrick Hemingway in 1928, they settled in Key West, Florida, but summered in Wyoming. During this time, Hemingway finished his celebrated World War I novel A Farewell to Arms , securing his lasting place in the literary canon.

When he wasn't writing, Hemingway spent much of the 1930s chasing adventure: big-game hunting in Africa, bullfighting in Spain and deep-sea fishing in Florida. While reporting on the Spanish Civil War in 1937, Hemingway met a fellow war correspondent named Martha Gellhorn (soon to become wife number three) and gathered material for his next novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls , which would eventually be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Almost predictably, his marriage to Pfeiffer deteriorated and the couple divorced. Gellhorn and Hemingway married soon after and purchased a farm near Havana, Cuba, which would serve as their winter residence.

When the United States entered World War II in 1941, Hemingway served as a correspondent and was present at several of the war's key moments, including the D-Day landing. Toward the end of the war, Hemingway met another war correspondent, Mary Welsh, whom he would later marry after divorcing Gellhorn.

In 1951, Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea , which would become perhaps his most famous book, finally winning him the Pulitzer Prize he had long been denied.

Personal Struggles and Suicide

The author continued his forays into Africa and sustained several injuries during his adventures, even surviving multiple plane crashes.

In 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Even at this peak of his literary career, though, the burly Hemingway's body and mind were beginning to betray him. Recovering from various old injuries in Cuba, Hemingway suffered from depression and was treated for numerous conditions such as high blood pressure and liver disease.

He wrote A Moveable Feast , a memoir of his years in Paris, and retired permanently to Idaho. There he continued to battle with deteriorating mental and physical health.

Early on the morning of July 2, 1961, Hemingway committed suicide in his Ketchum home.

Hemingway left behind an impressive body of work and an iconic style that still influences writers today. His personality and constant pursuit of adventure loomed almost as large as his creative talent.

When asked by George Plimpton about the function of his art, Hemingway proved once again to be a master of the "one true sentence": "From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from all things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality."

In August 2018, a 62-year-old short story by Hemingway, "A Room on the Garden Side," was published for the first time in The Strand Magazine . Set in Paris shortly after the liberation of the city from Nazi forces in 1944, the story was one of five composed by the writer in 1956 about his World War II experiences. It became the second story from the series to earn posthumous publication, following "Black Ass at the Crossroads."

QUICK FACTS

  • Name: Ernest Hemingway
  • Birth Year: 1899
  • Birth date: July 21, 1899
  • Birth State: Illinois
  • Birth City: Cicero (now in Oak Park)
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is seen as one of the great American 20th century novelists, and is known for works like 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'The Old Man and the Sea.'
  • Writing and Publishing
  • Astrological Sign: Cancer
  • Oak Park and River Forest High School
  • Death Year: 1961
  • Death date: July 2, 1961
  • Death State: Idaho
  • Death City: Ketchum
  • Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

  • Article Title: Ernest Hemingway Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/writer/ernest-hemingway
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E Television Networks
  • Last Updated: May 7, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
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  • Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. It will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
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11 Best Ernest Hemingway Books in Chronological Order

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11 best ernest hemingway books in chronological order.

11 Best Ernest Hemingway Books in Chronological Order

When puzzling over what the best Ernest Hemingway books are, a reader might not be burdened by a mountain of publications — as with trying to determine the best Stephen King novels , for instance. However, that doesn’t make the task any easier. And that’s because when someone connects with a Hemingway book, they really connect with it. For example, you will have a hard time convincing someone who holds The Old Man and the Sea above all else that For Whom the Bell Tolls is the best Ernest Hemingway book. 

That’s why we’ve decided not to pick favorites. Instead, this list covers 11 of our favorite Ernest Hemingway books in order of publication, not preference. Eight were published during his lifetime, and three posthumously. And to kick things off, let’s start with a fun fact: did you know that Hemingway’s fourth wife and widow, Mary Hemingway, discovered about 332 unpublished work after Hemingway’s death? So much more potential Hemingway to read! And on that note...

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1. The Torrents of Spring (1926)

Often overlooked for his other works (and because it was published the same year as the much-praised The Sun Also Rises ), The Torrents of Spring is a novella that parodies Sherwood Anderson’s Dark Laughter — a novel Hemingway viewed as pretentious. But the book doesn’t only focus on Anderson. It satirizes many American and British “great writers” of the day, including John Dos Passos and James Joyce.

Many view this novella as Hemingway’s attempt to break away from his roots, for various reasons: firstly, because Anderson played a key role in Hemingway’s early successes as an author; secondly, because many of Hemingway’s Chicago contemporaries subscribed to a distinct “Chicago School of Literature” style, which is mocked in The Torrents of Spring ; and finally, it is widely discussed that Hemingway published the parody in order to get out of his contract with his publisher at the time, Boni & Liveright.

“Take for yourself what you can, and don't be ruled by others; to belong to oneself - the whole savour of life lies in that.” 

Fun fact: The Torrents of Spring was written in just ten days.

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2. The Sun Also Rises (1926)

As an author whose works have been studied and referenced at length, Hemingway’s novels are often referred to in the same style of Friends episode titles (“The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break,” for instance). In the case of The Sun Also Rises , it’s “the quintessential novel of the ‘Lost Generation.’” In other words, it’s about the generation of people who suffered disillusionment and angst following the First World War. 

Over the course of the novel, unlucky Jake Barnes and extravagant Lady Brett Ashley travel from the jazzy Parisian parties of the Roaring 20s to the harsh and brutal bullfighting rings of Pamplona, Spain, with a ragtag crew of American expatriates. 

“Oh Jake," Brett said, "We could have had such a damned good time together."

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly, pressing Brett against me.

"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so?”

Fun fact: While the book initially received mixed reviews for its modern and sparse approach to prose, many Hemingway scholars feel that The Sun Also Rises was his “most important work,” defining the writing style that would come to be known as the “iceberg theory” — writing that is simple on the surface, but contains deeper meanings between the lines.

3. A Farewell to Arms (1929)

Sticking with the aforementioned theme: this is the bestselling novel that not only turned the spotlight onto Hemingway as a modern American writer, but also the book that was dubbed “the premier American war novel” from WWI. Set against the backdrop of that very war, the novel is narrated from the first person perspective of expatriate Frederic Henry. Frederic serves as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army and embarks on a love affair with an English nurse called Catherine Barkley. 

The novel was heavily inspired by Hemingway’s own life: he also served in the Italian campaigns during WWI and fell in love with a nurse who cared for him in a hospital in Milan.

“Often a man wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.” 

Fun fact: Before A Farewell to Arms was published, Hemingway sent the manuscript to his good friend Scott F. Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald responded with ten pages of notes, to which Hemingway responded, “Kiss my ass.” Apparently this was par for the course in the teasing friendship between the two authors.

4. Winner Take Nothing (1933)

Think this bleak title masks the bright and cheery nature of the short stories within? Think again. Hemingway’s final short story collection takes readers on a somber journey, with many dark themes throughout — such as disillusionment, despair, dishonor, and death. While many of his novels feature sweeping heroic figures, the stories of Winner Take Nothing zero in on the darker parts of life.

“Our nada who art in nada, nada be thy name thy kingdom nada thy will be nada in nada as it is in nada. Give us this nada our daily nada and nada us our nada as we nada our nadas and nada us not into nada but deliver us from nada; pues nada. Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee.” 

Fun fact: This collection includes one of Hemingway’s best-known short stories, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” about an old, Spanish beggar.

5. To Have and Have Not (1937)

A bare-bones explanation of this novel brings to mind the plot of AMC’s Breaking Bad : a good man falls on hard times and turns to crime in order to support his family. However, there’s no meth-cooking or New Mexico backdrop in this tale. Instead, the novel takes place during the Great Depression — during which fishing boat captain Harry Morgan is forced to run contraband, and then illegal immigrants, between Cuba and Florida as a means of fighting the depravity and hunger of the time. 

“The moon was up now and the trees were dark against it, and he passed the frame houses with their narrow yards, light coming from the shuttered windows; the unpaved alleys, with their double rows of houses; Conch town, where all was starched, well-shuttered, virtue, failure, grit and boiled grunts, under-nourishment, prejudice, righteousness, inter-breeding and the comforts of religion; the open-doored, lighted Cuban boilto houses, shacks whose only romance was their names.”

Fun fact: The book has been loosely adapted into five different films — most famously a 1944 version starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and then again in 1950, 1958, 1977, and 1987.

6. For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)

Regarded as one of the best-written war novels of all time, Hemingway completed For Whom the Bell Tolls three years after covering the Spanish civil war for the North American Newspaper alliance. 

The story follows Robert Jordan, a young American working with republican guerrillas in the mountains of Spain. Their assignment is to blow up a major bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia, and the novel tracks the four days leading up to this event. Exploring themes of death, political ideology, and camaraderie, the novel inspired Maxwell Perkins (editor and discoverer of Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe, and more) to write of Hemingway: "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality, no one ever so completely performed it."

“There is nothing else than now. There is neither yesterday, certainly, nor is there any tomorrow. How old must you be before you know that? There is only now, and if now is only two days, then two days is your life and everything in it will be in proportion. This is how you live a life in two days. And if you stop complaining and asking for what you never will get, you will have a good life.”

Fun fact: The book’s title is taken from a poem by John Donne, who wrote meditations and prayers about health, pain, and sickness. The full poem is quoted in the epigraph of For Whom the Bell Tolls : "No man is an Island, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."

7. Across the River and Into the Trees (1950)

Do you ever read negative reviews of a book and then decide to read it anyway, to see whether you agree with the criticism or feel it was unjust? If you do, check out Across the River and Into the Trees , the final full-length novel published by Hemingway. It was the first of his novels to be met with unenthusiastic reception and negative press. (Despite this, it spent seven weeks at the top of the New York Times bestseller list — and was the only one of Hemingway’s books to reach the #1 spot).

The book centers on Richard Cantwell, a middle-aged, war-ravaged American colonel. He is stationed in Italy at the end of the Second World War, and about to embark on a duck-hunting trip in Trieste. Through flashbacks, readers get to know Richard — particularly, about a young Venetian countess he fell in love with and his experiences during the First World War. The novel is a love letter to Italy, a love letter to love, and an examination of the different ways in which people meet death. 

“He smiled as only the truly shy can smile. It was not the easy grin of the confident, nor the quick slashing smile of the extremely durable and the wicked. It had no relation with the poised, intently used smile of the courtesan or the politician. It was the strange, rare smile which rises from the deep, dark pit, deeper than a well, deep as a mine, that is within them.” 

Fun fact: The title, Across the River and Into the Trees, comes from the final documented words of U.S. Civil War Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”

8. The Old Man and the Sea (1952)

The final novella published during Hemingway’s life, The Old Man and the Sea is also one of his most popular books — compared by critics of the time to Moby-Dick . The novella won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953, and was a large factor in Hemingway being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. 

The Old Man and the Sea examines themes of courage in the face of hardship and perseverance in the face of apparent defeat through Santiago, an old Cuban fisherman who is down on his luck. He also happens to be in the middle of his life’s greatest struggle — a high-stakes battle with a relentless marlin out the Gulf Stream. (You can understand the Moby-Dick comparison). 

“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.” 

Fun fact: The book was featured in a September 1952 edition of Life magazine — an edition which then sold over five million copies in just two days.

9. A Moveable Feast (1964)

If you want to learn more about Hemingway’s youth from the man himself, check out this posthumously published memoir . A Moveable Feast deals with the author’s years as a struggling journalist and writer in 1920s Paris. It’s comprised of various journal entries, personal accounts, and stories written by Hemingway — and features a remarkable cast of notable figures, including: Sylvia Beach, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and more. Finally, if you want to see Paris in the 1920s as Hemingway did, simply make a note of the apartments, bars, cafes, and hotels the memoir mentions, as many still stand proudly today.

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” 

Fun fact: There is some controversy surrounding Mary Hemingway’s posthumous publication of A Moveable Feast . Some feel that she removed significant passages — including a lengthy apology — about his first wife, Hadley Richardson. Other scholars have stood up for Mary, asserting the memoir was published just how Hemingway had intended it.

10. Islands in the Stream (1970)

Islands in the Stream was meant to be published after Across the River and Into the Trees , with the hope that it would revive Hemingway’s reputation after the bad press of the latter book. However, despite the fact that book was basically finished, it wasn’t published until almost 20 years later — long after Hemingway had passed away.

The novel is comprised of three parts. The first act, “Bimini,” introduces the main character Thomas Hudson: a renowned painter living in the Bahamas. The second act, “Havana,” jumps to the end of the Second World War, and sees Thomas receiving news of his son’s death. In the third act, “At Sea,” Thomas tracks the survivors of a sunken German U-boat, bent on bringing them to justice. 

“He thought that he would lie down and think about nothing. Sometimes he could do this. Sometimes he could think about the stars without wondering about them and the ocean without problems and the sunrise without what it would bring.”

Fun fact: The original third act of Islands In the Stream was titled "The Sea in Being" — which was eventually published separately as The Old Man and the Sea .

11. The Dangerous Summer (1985)

Cited as Hemingway’s last book, The Dangerous Summer is a nonfiction title which was written in 1960 and published posthumously over 20 years later. It describes the rivalry that occurred during the “dangerous summer” of 1959 between two bullfighters: Luis Migual Dominguín and Antonio Ordóñez (Hemingway’s brother-in-law, and a major inspiration for the bullfighting depicted in The Sun Also Rises ). 

'Contento Ernesto?' he asked. 'Muy contento.' 'So am I,' he said. 'You saw how he [the bull] was? You saw everything about him?' 'I think so,' I said. 'Let's eat at Fraga.' 'Good.' 'Be careful on the road.' 'See you in Fraga,' I said." 

Fun fact: Are lengthy introductions your thing? Then you’ll love the 33-page intro that author James Mitchener provided for the beginning of The Dangerous Summer .

Looking for more literary classics to read? Check out our list of the 15 best John Steinbeck books.

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Ernest Hemmingway: A Biography

Ernest hemminway (1899 – 1961).

Ernest Hemingway was a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. More works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Several of his works are now classics of American literature. In 1961, like his father, a brother and a sister, Hemingway committed suicide. A niece, Margaux Hemingway, the Holywood star, also committed suicide.

What places Hemingway among the twenty top American writers is the style he developed, that set the benchmark for 20th century prose writing in the whole of the English speaking world. He changed the nature of American writing by reacting against the elaborate style of 19th century writers and by creating a style, in the words of literary critic, Henry Louis Gates, of Harvard, ‘in which meaning is established through dialogue, through action, and silences—a fiction in which nothing crucial—or at least very little—is stated explicitly.’

When Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize, the citation commented that it was for his ‘mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea , and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style.’ His first novel, The Sun Also Rises is written in the minimal, lean, muscular, stripped-down prose for which he became famous and which influenced the writers who came after him.

Ernest Hemmingway: A Biography 1

Perhaps most famous for his war novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls , he began his fiction writing with short stories, in which he taught himself how to edit his prose, stripping it to the bone and creating a greater intensity by the omission rather than the inclusion of detail. The result is to create significant connections and meaning beneath the surface of a sparse, apparently simple, almost monosyllabic narrative, using the simple sentences that a child might use. He also employs cinematic techniques such as cutting quickly from one scene to the next and of splicing one scene into another. Intentional scene omissions allow the reader to fill in the gap, creating for herself a three dimensional prose. As a result of that example it became almost impossible for 20th Century fiction writers to revert to the kind of prose that preceded Hemingway’s.

It wasn’t just writers and critics that showed enthusiasm for Hemingway’s works: he had a huge following among general fiction readers. His universal themes of love, death, war and loss permeate his writings in the same way that they did that of Shakespeare  and many other great writers, as well as being recurring themes in American literature.  The critic, Susan Beegel, in spite of an objection to what she sees as an anti-semitic, homophobic thread in his works, sums it up thus: ‘Throughout his remarkable body of fiction, he tells the truth about human fear, guilt, betrayal, violence, cruelty, drunkenness, hunger, greed, apathy, ecstasy, tenderness, love and lust.’

The extent of Hemingway’s presence in the popular culture is testament to his significance as a 20th century literary figure. There are several bars named ‘Harry’s Bar’ around the world, in recognition of the bar in the novel Across the River and Into the Trees . There are also many restaurant’s called ‘Hemingway’s.’ A line of furniture includes ‘the Kilimanjaro bedside table’ and a ‘Catherine’ sofa; a line of Hemingway safari clothes has been created and there is an expensive Hemingway fountain pen. His  novels have been made into films, sometimes more than once, and several short stories have been adapted for film and television.

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Born on July 21, 1899, in Cicero (now in Oak Park), Illinois, Ernest Hemingway served in World War I and worked in journalism before publishing his story collection

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Ernest Hemingway was different than other authors of his time not only because his style of writing, but also because of what he enjoyed to do with his free time in his exciting life.

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Ernest Hemingway's Favorite Hamburger Featured Wine In The Recipe

burger meat with red wine

Ernest Hemingway may be known for writing numerous novels and short stories, but that's not all that he penned. A notorious gourmand , the literary great is also the author of an iconic recipe for homemade hamburgers. Possibly one of Hemingway's most peculiar texts, a typed and hand-edited recipe for "Papa's Favorite Wild West Hamburger" outlines the exact makings of a good burger. Of the many ingredients featured, a splash of wine is precisely the addition that renders Hemingway's burger truly irresistible. 

Between braising and deglazing, cooking with wine isn't a foreign concept. However, when it comes to crafting burgers, wine might not be the first ingredient that comes to mind. That said, the boozy addition does serve a few purposes. Primarily, wine can work to impart flavor, offering nuances of fruit, spice, or smoke. Likewise, since wine is fairly acidic, it can even balance the savory richness of the beef patties. Not to mention that a splash can also help keep the burgers moist. Just bear in mind that not every wine should be used.

The key to making Hemingway's famous burgers is to use a dry wine. As for which works best, opt for something that you'd enjoy drinking with a burger — the bottle will be open anyway. Bold and full-bodied reds such as  Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, or Tempranillo are always a great choice for red meat, but white wines like a crisp Chenin Blanc or a palate-cleansing Riesling can also work well.

How to make a tasty burger, Hemingway-style

To make Papa's Favorite Wild West Hamburger, more than ground beef and wine are needed. Hemingway lists aromatics like garlic and green onions alongside spices such as parsley, sage, a salt-sugar-pepper seasoning, and Spice Islands' Beau Monde Seasoning. Additional salt and pepper also make their way into the mince, in addition to an egg, a spoonful of India relish, and some capers. Yet, it isn't just this collection of unique ingredients that makes Hemingway's burger so successful — the method of preparation is just as important.

After combining the meat with the dry ingredients, Hemingway suggests letting the mixture rest briefly at room temperature. With wine and relish added, the mixture must sit again, before 1-inch thick patties can be formed. Next, the burgers can be pan-fried in oil until the edges are crispy, but the inside is still pink. The hamburgers can then be placed into buns and enjoyed. Any toppings can be added, however, given that the burgers will teem with texture and flavor, they probably won't need much else. 

Looking for other ways to add wine into burgers? Adapt Hemingway's approach. For instance, you can marinate patties in wine  or even slowly simmer the burgers in a wine of your choosing. Otherwise, reduce the liquid into a sauce to top them. Whatever you decide, draw inspiration from Hemingway, and remember that adding wine to your burger recipe is never a bad idea!

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  1. Biography of Ernest Hemingway, Journalist and Writer

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  2. Ernest Hemingway: The Biography by University Press Biographies

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  3. Ernest Hemingway Biography

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  4. Click on: ERNEST HEMINGWAY, THE BIOGRAPHY

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  5. Ernest Hemingway Biography Biography and Bibliography

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  6. a book review by Judith Reveal: Ernest Hemingway: A Biography

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  1. About Ernest Hemingway's Life, Legacy, and Literature

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COMMENTS

  1. 6 Fascinating Biographies on Ernest Hemingway

    Celebrate the life of one of the most iconic American writers to date. Ernest Hemingway was not only a revolutionary American novelist, but he was also an adventure seeker and world traveler. Hemingway moved to Paris in 1921, where he worked, partied, and learned from other authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound.

  2. Reviews of Biographies of Ernest Hemingway

    Raymond Carver on Hemingway Biographies by Jeffrey Meyers and Peter Griffin (1985) ... 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 ...

  3. A Hemingway Tell-All Bares His Tall Tales

    A Biography. By Mary V. Dearborn. Illustrated. 738 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $35. Ernest Hemingway began his career blessed lavishly by the gods. As a rugged young journalist, with a radiant, adoring ...

  4. Ernest Hemingway's Top 10 Books Ranked

    On this list, you'll find ten of the best books that Ernest Hemingway wrote, all of which received varying degrees of positive and negative criticism during his life. 1. The Old Man and the Sea. The Old Man and the Sea Digital Art. ' The Old Man and the Sea ' is commonly cited as Hemingway's best novel. It was written in Cuba in 1951 ...

  5. 14 Must-Read Ernest Hemingway Books

    The Old Man and the Sea. By Hemingway, Ernest. It is almost impossible to single out one particular story from Hemingway's monumental oeuvre, but if one had to do so, The Old Man and the Sea might be his most legendary. The last major literary work released during Hemingway's lifetime, The Old Man and the Sea won him the Pulitzer Prize in ...

  6. Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Hemingway (born July 21, 1899, Cicero [now in Oak Park], Illinois, U.S.—died July 2, 1961, Ketchum, Idaho) was an American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writing and for his adventurous and widely publicized life.

  7. Ranked: The Best Hemingway Books Of All Time

    10. Death In The Afternoon. Why It Made the Cut. Hemingway's defining work on the subject, Death in the Afternoon is a non-fiction story examining the nuances of bullfighting. Hemingway was a huge fan of bullfighting and had written about it several times throughout his career. But Death In The Afternoon is, undoubtedly, his defining work on ...

  8. Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Miller Hemingway (/ ˈ ɜːr n ɪ s t ˈ h ɛ m ɪ ŋ w eɪ /; July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image.

  9. Ernest Hemingway: A New Life By James M. Hutchisson

    To many, the life of Ernest Hemingway has taken on mythic proportions. From his romantic entanglements to his legendary bravado, the elements of Papa's persona have fascinated readers, turning Hemingway into such an outsized figure that it is almost impossible to imagine him as a real person. James Hutchisson's biography reclaims Hemingway from the sensationalism, revealing the life of a ...

  10. The 10 Best Ernest Hemingway Books Everyone Should Read

    Scribner The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. Now 41% Off. $10 at Amazon. Published in 1926, Hemingway's first novel is now widely regarded as his best. Hemingway traveled to the Festival of ...

  11. The 10 best Ernest Hemingway books, according to Goodreads readers

    Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) is the master of understated, spare prose. Below are Ernest Hemingway's 10 most popular books, according to Goodreads readers. Readers especially love " The Old Man ...

  12. Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Hemingway Biographical . E rnest Hemingway (1899-1961), born in Oak Park, Illinois, started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at the front, he was wounded, was decorated by the Italian Government, and spent considerable ...

  13. Biography of Ernest Hemingway, Journalist and Writer

    Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899-July 2, 1961) is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Best known for his novels and short stories, he was also an accomplished journalist and war correspondent. Hemingway's trademark prose style—simple and spare—influenced a generation of writers.

  14. 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 ...

  15. Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Hemingway. Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) was an American novelist and journalist who authored fifteen books. He moved to Paris in the 1920s. "The only way they could have an interesting life is by being poor in Paris, rather than poor in the US." Yale English professor Wai Chee Dimock on the best books on Hemingway in Paris ...

  16. Ernest Hemingway

    Gender: Male. Best Known For: Nobel Prize winner Ernest Hemingway is seen as one of the great American 20th century novelists, and is known for works like 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'The Old Man and ...

  17. Ernest Hemingway: A Biography by Mary V. Dearborn

    Mary Dearborn's Ernest Hemingway: A Biography represents a masterful & revealing profile of a highly gifted & exceedingly complex American literary figure, perhaps the 1st Hemingway biography by a woman, at least the 1st one I am aware of. This is a book I meant to skim while reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast but which quickly captured my interest in spite of its 600+ page length.

  18. What is the best biography about Hemingway? : r/Hemingway

    That'll be $39.99. The Dearborn bio is my current favorite. It's the first one written by a woman so that's significant. The Baker biography is the "original" one and the only one where (other than Hotchner) the author interviewed Hemingway. I would recommend starting with the Baker and then going to others.

  19. Ernest Hemingway

    In 1967 William White edited a collection of Hemingway's best journalism under the title By-Line Ernest Hemingway. Further Reading. The authorized biography of Hemingway is Carlos Baker, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story (1969). A controversial portrait is A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway: A Personal Memoir (1966).

  20. The most recommended books about Ernest Hemingway

    Meet our 82 experts. Lee Martin Author. Edith de Belleville Author. Holger H. Herwig Author. +76. 82 authors created a book list connected to Ernest Hemingway, and here are their favorite Ernest Hemingway books. Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission .

  21. 11 Best Ernest Hemingway Books in Chronological Order

    Blog - Posted on Thursday, Apr 11 11 Best Ernest Hemingway Books in Chronological Order When puzzling over what the best Ernest Hemingway books are, a reader might not be burdened by a mountain of publications — as with trying to determine the best Stephen King novels, for instance.However, that doesn't make the task any easier.

  22. Hemingway: a Life Story by Carlos Baker

    Reading this biography of Hemingway was like a Grand Tour of Europe, a history class, an introduction to hunting and fishing techniques of the early 20th century, a gossip rag exposing the best writers of the age, and a strenuous strength training routine all in one.

  23. Biography Of Ernest Hemmingway, American Author

    Ernest Hemminway (1899 - 1961) Ernest Hemingway was a novelist, short story writer, and journalist. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. More works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published ...

  24. Ernest Hemingway

    Men Without Women. - New York : Scribners, 1927. Winner Take Nothing. - New York : Scribner, 1933. The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories. - New York : Scribners, 1938. - Republished as The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (1954) The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories. - New York : Scribner, 1961.

  25. Lorrie Moore Is Among National Book Critics Circle Award Winners

    In addition to giving prizes in literary categories like biography, criticism, autobiography, fiction and poetry, the group also recognizes individuals and organizations for their contributions to ...

  26. An Exquisite Biography of a Gilded Age Legend

    Bright, impetuous and obsessed with beautiful things, Isabella Stewart Gardner led a life out of a Gilded Age novel. Born into a wealthy New York family, she married into an even wealthier Boston ...

  27. Ernest Hemingway's Favorite Hamburger Featured Wine In The Recipe

    To make Papa's Favorite Wild West Hamburger, more than ground beef and wine are needed. Hemingway lists aromatics like garlic and green onions alongside spices such as parsley, sage, a salt-sugar ...