Synopses & Reviews
Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. This collection, The Short Stories, originally published in 1938, is definitive. Among these forty-nine short stories are Hemingway's earliest efforts, written when he was a young foreign correspondent in Paris, and such masterpieces as "Hills Like White Elephants," "The Killers," "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style -- from the plain, bald language of his first story, "Up in Michigan," to the seamless prose and spare, eloquent pathos of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" to the expansive solitude of the Big Two-Hearted River stories. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the twentieth century.
Synopsis
The definitive short story collection that established Ernest Hemingway's literary reputation, originally published in 1938. Ernest Hemingway is a cultural icon--an archetype of rugged masculinity, a romantic ideal of the intellectual in perpetual exile--but, to his countless readers, Hemingway remains a literary force much greater than his image. Of all of Hemingway's canonical fictions, perhaps none demonstrate so forcefully the power of the author's revolutionary style as his short stories. In classics like "Hills like White Elephants," "The Butterfly in the Tank," and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," Hemingway shows us great literature compressed to its most potent essentials. We also see, in Hemingway's short fiction, the tales that created the legend: these are stories of men and women in love and in war and on the hunt, stories of a lost generation born into a fractured time.
The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway presents many of Hemingway's most famous classics alongside rare and unpublished material: Hemingway's early drafts and correspondence, his dazzling out-of-print essay on the art of the short story, and two marvelous examples of his earliest work--his first published story, "The Judgment of Manitou," which Hemingway wrote when still a high school student, and a never-before-published story, written when the author was recovering from a war injury in Milan after WWI. This work offers vital insight into the artistic development of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. It is a perfect introduction for a new generation of Hemingway readers, and it belongs in the collection of any true Hemingway fan.
About the Author
Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.
Table of Contents
CONTENTSTHE SHORT HAPPY LIFE OF FRANCIS MACOMBER
THE CAPITAL OF THE WORLD
THE SNOWS OF KILIMANJARO
OLD MAN AT THE BRIDGE
UP IN MICHIGAN
ON THE QUAI AT SMYRNA
INDIAN CAMP
THE DOCTOR AND THE DOCTOR'S WIFE
THE END OF SOMETHING
THE THREE-DAY BLOW
THE BATTLER
A VERY SHORT STORY
SOLDIER'S HOME
THE REVOLUTIONIST
MR. AND MRS. ELLIOT
CAT IN THE RAIN
OUT OF SEASON
CROSS-COUNTRY SNOW
MY OLD MAN
BIG TWO-HEARTED RIVER: PART I
BIG TWO-HEARTED RIVER: PART II
THE UNDEFEATED
IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS
THE KILLERS
CHE TI DICE LA PATRIA?
FIFTY GRAND
A SIMPLE ENQUIRY
TEN INDIANS
A CANARY FOR ONE
AN ALPINE IDYLL
A PURSUIT RACE
TODAY IS FRIDAY
BANAL STORY
NOW I LAY ME
AFTER THE STORM
A CLEAN, WELL-LIGHTED PLACE
THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
GOD REST YOU MERRY, GENTLEMEN
THE SEA CHANGE
A WAY YOU'LL NEVER BE
THE MOTHER OF A QUEEN
ONE READER WRITES
HOMAGE TO SWITZERLAND
A DAY'S WAIT
A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE DEAD
WINE OF WYOMING
THE GAMBLER, THE NUN, AND THE RADIO
FATHERS AND SONS