Ernest Hemingway
"We can't ever go back to old things or try and get the old kick out of something or find things the way we remembered them. We have them as we remember them and they are fine and wonderful and we have to go on and have other things because the old things are nowhere except in our minds now" (Hemingway 1923) One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Hemingway continues to have a remarkable attraction. Born in 1899 near Chicago, he published his first book in 1923 - Three Stories and Ten Poems. In what is probably his most famous book, A Farewell To Arms, Hemingway describes his time as a military ambulance driver in Italy where he was wounded and ended up in hospital and in love with his nurse Agnes von Kurowsky.
He was a highly competitive man who relished big game hunting, bull fighting and heavy drinking. He was also amazingly accident prone and seems to have survived several plane crashes. But, Hemingway never found contentment in life, and after moving from place to place, finally took his own life in 1961.
If you want to find out more about Hemingway, get hold of a copy of Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure (Orion ISBN 0-75283-706-0) or read his Farewell To Arms, For Whom The Bell Tolls or Death In The Afternoon - some of his best works. In these days of new men and political correctness, Hemingway stands out not as a man you can admire, but certainly as one of the more interesting characters in the world.
Published Works
1923 Three Stories & Ten Poems (published in Paris)
1924 in our time [sic] (published in Paris)
1925 In Our Time
1926 Torrents of Spring
1926 The Sun Also Rises
1927 Men Without Women
1929 A Farewell to Arms
1932 Death in the Afternoon
1933 Winner Take Nothing
1935 Green Hills of Africa
1937 To Have and Have Not
1938 The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories
1940 For Whom the Bell Tolls
1942 Men at War: The best War Stories of All Time (edited and with introduction by Hemingway)
1950 Across the River and Into the Trees
1952 The Old Man and the Sea
1964 A Moveable Feast 1967 By-Line: Ernest Hemingway
1986 The Garden of Eden
1987 The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
1999 True At First Light
