Written when Ernest Hemingway was thirty 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, demoralised men marching in the rain during the German attack on Caporetto; the profound struggle between loyalty and desertion - this gripping, semi-autobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war and the pain of lovers caught in its inexorable sweep.
Ernest Hemingway famously said that he rewrote the ending to A Farewell to Arms thirty-nine times to get the words right. This edition collects all of the alternative endings together for the first time, along with early drafts of other essential passages, offering new insight into Hemingway's craft and creative process and the evolution of one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Featuring the Nobel Prize winner's own 1948 introduction to an illustrated reissue of the novel, a personal foreword by the author's son Patrick Hemingway, and a new introduction by the author's grandson Sean Hemingway, this edition of A Farewell to Arms is truly a celebration.
About the Author
Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Chicago in 1899, the son of a doctor and the second of six children. After a stint as an ambulance driver at the Italian front, Hemingway came home to America in 1919, only to return to the battlefield - this time as a reporter on the Greco-Turkish war - in 1922. Resigning from journalism to focus on his writing instead, he moved to Paris where he renewed his earlier friendship with fellow American expatriates such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Through the years, Hemingway travelled widely and wrote avidly, becoming an internationally recognized literary master of his craft. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.
Industry Reviews
A most beautiful, moving and human book * Vita Sackville-West *
A novel of great power * Times Literary Supplement *
Flawless... such mastery of narrative, imagery and feeling, the prerequisites for great prose -- Edna O'Brien * Guardian *
It seems such simple and straightforward language, but it isn't. The first chapter of A Farewell to Arms is only two and a bit pages but there is almost every variety of sentence structure. It is incredibly artful writing, and part of the art is disguising that it is artful. -- John Harvey * Guardian *
Essential Hemingway...a gripping account of the life of an American volunteer in the Italian army and a poignant love story. * Daily Express *
