best hemingway biography book

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

Ernest Hemingway’s Top 10 Books Ranked 📚

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

Article 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 ‘ 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.

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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.

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.

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

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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 ."

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'

"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'

" 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'

"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'

"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'

"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'

"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'

"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'

"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'

"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'

"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'

" 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. 

• Main content

Ernest Hemingway

James M. Hutchisson

$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.

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From the Sun Also Rises to Death in the Afternoon: The best Ernest Hemingway books you need to read right now

If you're a hemingway fan, make sure you read every one of these books.

"In order to write about life first you must live it," is a quote by the late Hemingway himself. Not only did he quite literally live up to those words but his life was seemingly a never-ending adventure. It is arguably what made him charismatic as a man and an even larger-than-life figure during his time on earth.

It's also been said that after Ernest Hemingway, one either tried to write like Hemingway or one tried not to write like Hemingway. Such was the enormous impact on the craft of English letters by the late writer, and for his contribution, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Many are first introduced to "Papa" and his work in middle school or high school with The Sun Also Rises , The Old Man and the Sea , or one of his numerous short stories , all of which are damn fine, to borrow his verbiage. While some of these titles are a century old, his books continue to influence and inspire in the present. But there are many more Ernest Hemingway books that he wrote or was writing that, while overshadowed by the titans of his canon, are nevertheless worth a read by more than just the die-hard fan.

We've compiled a list of the absolute 10 best Hemingway books that, in our eyes , round out a thorough reading list for any aspiring acolyte. Lists are, by their nature, subjective, and they only become more so when one cares deeply about the subject. But while you may not want to run with the bulls in Spain, work as a game warden in Kenya, or marry four different women (really), Hemingway's work inspires adventure and sacrifice. So, regardless of which one you decide to start with, there is no better time to get to know one of the greatest American authors to have ever lived and read up on the best Hemingway books.

The Sun Also Rises

In her book  Everybody Behaves Badly , author Lesley M. M. Blume recounts the events of Hemingway's days in Paris and then in Spain, which would inspire  The Sun Also Rises . While not technically his first novel — he published an ill-received satire of the late Sherwood Anderson that even now stumps critics — Sun  should, for all intents and purposes, be considered his debut. And what a debut. It displays the writer's keen ear for dialogue as well as the sparse nature of his description and narrative.

And while there were certainly other places that Americans lived and played, it came to summarize an entire generation to the point that its epigraph, a quote attributed to the writer Gertrude Stein, coined it the "Lost Generation." Protagonist Jake Barnes is the quintessential Hemingway character: Competent, confident, and yet doomed to unfulfillment. The book is lively and engrossing, and it belongs at the top of any essential Hemingway reading list.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

Approach your first Hemingway novel without fear and trembling.  Arms , published in 1929, was the writer's sophomore effort, and it follows an AWOL American soldier serving in the Italian army and his Florence Nightingale-style nurse as they flee the Great War. It's got daring escapes, Alpine skiing, and a tragic ending, and it also borrows from the author's own autobiography, though greatly embellished and adapted. Its place as one of the most important works on World War I cannot be diminished, but it also represents a more confident writer, coming off a win, stretching his literary and fictional muscles.

In short, don't call it a comeback. It's been made and remade and remade again into movies, and if there ever were a Hemingway book that might be considered a beach read (although admittedly it's still filled with gravitas), this is it. Pack it next to your towel and sunscreen.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Published posthumously from an unfinished manuscript,  A Moveable Feast invites readers to imagine what it might have become with the final touches by the master. Regardless, it's perfect in its own way as a memoir of Hemingway's early days in Paris. Again, you can read of Hemingway deep-sea fishing and hunting German U-Boats and stalking big game in Africa. But before all this, before Hemingway was Hemingway, he was a young man burning with desire and working on his craft.

The book also acts as a time capsule for 1920s Paris, which, from Woody Allen to others, is imbued with its own magic. Are all the stories true? One can only guess. But if they are, F. Scott Fitzgerald showed Hemingway his hog in a restaurant bathroom.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Many mistakenly believe Hemingway to be a war veteran, but in reality, the closest he came to combat was being insignificantly wounded while volunteering as a Red Cross ambulance driver during the First World War. However lacking in firsthand experience, he would continue to revisit mortal conflict in both his fiction and his nonfiction.

Like another book later in this list, Bell does have some basis in reality. It was researched by Hem himself while working as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War and going behind enemy lines to meet a man very much like his protagonist, Robert Jordan. The theme of one man against long odds not only betrays the writer's admiration for the trait but also for the cause itself, and he, like the late photographer Robert Capa and many others, deeply sympathized with the Second Spanish Republic's doomed fight against fascism. Its antagonists would prove a durable enemy, as the rise of the Nazi Germans during World War II would play a role in both Hemingway's own life and in that of his fiction.

The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

When you first read this book, you were much too young. Back then, you were worried about getting an A on your essay and where you would go to college and who you would ask to prom. This time around, don't search for themes or ponder the significance of colors — as Hemingway himself said, the sea is just the sea, the sharks are just sharks, and, "All the symbolism that people say is shit." Let the plight of the old fisherman, who finds his once-in-a-lifetime marlin torn to nothing, echo around your head.

Know that it was Hemingway's last novel published in his lifetime, and enjoy that finality. Praised by just above everyone from critics to competitors, it was viewed by Hemingway himself as his finest work. It's a short book, and one that appears in many all-time novel lists (despite the fact that it's technically a novella). But as a reintroduction to Hemingway, there are few of his works that require as little a commitment, nor are there many that will stay with you as long.

Three Stories and Ten Poems

An obscure book, and small, Poems represents one of the author's first triumphs. It was Hemingway's first published book, which had been his burning desire that sustained him through years of privation and practice. Its title is also indicative of his initial efforts: Hemingway would never again publish or write poetry, but in those heady days of youth, when anything was possible, he explored every possible direction.

While the poetry itself may be forgettable, this small collection also includes several notable short stories, including the very fine (and often anthologized) "Up in Michigan." No man emerges without striving, and for this reason alone, Poems belongs on any ambitious man's bookshelf.

Green Hills of Africa

When one examines Hemingway's life, it's almost as if the man had crafted a checklist of the most remote places in the world, which would offer the greatest adventures, and then moved there for a spell. Such is the backstory of  Hills , which chronicles his real-world adventures hunting in East Africa. Like others on this list, it provides a snapshot of scenes that are no longer available, or, if available, are not wanted.

His hunting expeditions show him discovering the rich, unsullied lands and their fat herds, but it also hints at the trouble to come with overhunting and scarcity of resources. Anthropological in nature, this book is essential travel reading for those fans of the genre.

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

This is, admittedly, a mouse-killer of an edition, a massive book that only the most die-hard fans will make it through. But don't think of it as some kind of drudgery. Rather, think of Hemingway's short stories like episodes of a television series. You can read one or five, put it down, and come back two weeks later, picking up right where you left off. Hemingway began his fiction life as a short-story writer, and he is arguably one of the masters of the form.

Relish these, which are assembled from all of his published collections. While the names of these past volumes may not mean much to you now, you've doubtless stumbled onto some of their stories over the course of your scholastic life, including "Hills Like White Elephants," "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," "The Killers," and others. Think of it as an accompaniment to that photo book you have on your coffee table: Pick it up at your leisure.

Death in the Afternoon

A book considered seminal in the history of bullfighting, Hemingway dives deep into its culture and roots, as well as his own firsthand experience. (Hint: Even for such a bold man, the writer is humbled when faced with the power of a young cow.) Running with the bulls in Pamplona is something many men desire in order to test their mettle, but this tome is fascinating as a kind of pet project for the author.

Hemingway, as some may guess through some of his other works, revered and adored the bullfighting culture, and it responded by loving him back. Elevating it to both poetry and religion, he was given unfettered access to explain it for the first time in his own words, and as such, it belongs among some of the best sport-that-transcends-sports writing ever assembled.

By-Line: Ernest Hemingway

Those new to Hemingway might believe that he sprung fully formed onto the literary landscape, but the reality is that he hustled. Before he was a famed novelist, he was essentially a freelance writer, working on assignment for newspapers around the U.S. while often living abroad. But even with this seeming drudgery, Hemingway had that je ne sais quoi in his copy, and his editors and readers alike felt it. 

By-Line  collects 77 of his nonfiction newspaper dispatches, and they have the same appeal as his fiction. Granted, this may be too in the weeds for some, but for any young man slogging his guts out for minimal pay and yet still fueled by a dream, this book gives courage and fortitude to stay the course.

Frequently Asked Questions

We recommend starting with The Sun Also Rises – the first book listed above. It is Hemingway's first major novel and is a classic of American literature. It’s a beautifully written and moving story about a group of disillusioned expatriates in Paris and Spain in the aftermath of World War I. The book has complex and well-developed characters, and the story explores themes of love, loss, and disillusionment.

The Sun Also Rises is also a good introduction to Hemingway's writing style. He is known for his simple, direct prose and his focus on character and dialogue. The novel is relatively short and easy to read, but it is also a thought-provoking and rewarding read.

Whether you're a seasoned aficionado at reading Hemingway or just getting started with his legendary works, these are the essential books that define the iconic American author and are the novels every enthusiast should read. As Hemingway liked to mention, "there is no friend as loyal as a book."

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Jeff Turbett is a health and wellness coach with over three years of experience transforming clients lives and physical health. He now resides outside of Miami, Fl, and before that, spent his life in Wisconsin - he knows the overwhelming benefits the outdoors can have on overall wellness.  Having been an athlete his whole life, he understands the importance of cross-training and the numerous benefits it can correlate to overall well-being. Jeff is also a contributor to other fitness publications.

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6 Fascinating Biographies on Ernest Hemingway

Celebrate the life of one of the most iconic American writers to date.

• Photo Credit: National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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. In 1925 his first major piece, In Our Time , was published. In the following year, one of his most famous books, The Sun Also Rises , was released. 

His novel, The Sun Also Rises , took much inspiration from his life while settled in Paris. While it is not the most optimistic book, the story involves a group of American expatriates working in France and Spain,  which reflected Hemingway and his author-friends’ current situations. These famous authors would go on to be considered a group of writers called The Lost Generation .

Throughout the thirties, the novelist drew creativity from his travels to Spain and Africa. His love for bullfighting helped him write Death in the Afternoon , and an African safari resulted in Green Hills of Africa . Hemingway’s global travels fueled his motivation and artistry throughout his entire life and often resulted in some of his most trailblazing work.

During the post-war years, Hemingway wrote some of his other greatest novels and short-stories including For Whom the Bells Toll , A Moveable Feast , and The Old Man and the Sea , which he received a Pulitzer Prize for in 1953. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

While we give a big-picture look at Hemingway’s career, the biographies on this list offer insights into his private life and stories behind the work that captivate us. These biographies come from some of the closest sources to the artist and provide a deeper look into who Hemingway truly was and how it shaped his work.

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Papa Hemingway

By A. E. Hotchner

In 1948, journalist A.E. Hotchner traveled to Cuba in hopes of interviewing Hemingway for an article on “The Future of Literature,” for Cosmopolitan magazine. While the article was never published, Hemingway and Hotchner developed a strong friendship that lasted until Hemingway’s death in 1961.

Throughout the years of friendship, the pair caroused through the bars of New York City, ran with the bulls in Pamplona, fished in the waters off of Cuba, and hunted in the Idaho wild. 

Hotchner candidly recites the life of Hemingway down to the details of his daily routine. From hand writing long, descriptive passages, to memories with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, and finally to Hemingway’s final years and his battle with depression, Hotchner celebrates the life of one of the most iconic literary figures in Papa Hemingway.   

Hunting with Hemingway

By Hilary Hemingway, Jeff Lindsay

Fifteen years after her father’s death, Hilary Hemingway received an intriguing inheritance—an audio cassette recorded by her father Les ,recounting the incredible and unbelievably true hunting stories he shared with his older brother, Ernest Hemingway.

Humorous tales of the Hemingway brothers hunting ferocious crocodiles, dangerous Komodo dragons, and scary ostriches are retold by Hilary. However, along with these fun memories is Les’s seriousness in defending his brother’s reputation and life.

Hilary brings us into the larger-than-life bond between Ernest and Les and shares her own story with making peace with the Hemingway legacy.

Hemingway’s Boat

By Paul Hendrickson

Focusing on the Hemingway’s life in the years of 1934-1961, Paul Hendrickson explores the highs and lows from Hemingway’s peak as the monarch of American letters until his suicide. During this time, one thing remained constant in Hemingway’s life: his beloved boat Pilar. 

Hendrickson dives into unpublished work, interviews with Hemingway’s sons, and undiscovered truths of the novelist’s life to bring a fresh understanding of the great American writer fifty years after his death.

Ernest Hemingway

By Mary V. Dearborn

Mary V. Dearborn’s biography on Hemingway was the first in many aspects. The first to use never-used-before material, the first to be written by a woman, and the first full biography of Hemingway in over fifteen years.

Published in 2017, Dearborn’s biography of Hemingway explores the complexity of his personality, his work, and his life. His seven novels and six short-story collections have changed the art of fiction and literature and continue to influence it today.

Dearborn also examines Hemingway’s personality and character on a deeper level as it was the same demons inspiring his revolutionary work that ultimately were leading him to his death in 1961.

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The Young Hemingway

By Michael Reynolds

Michael Reynolds breaks down Hemingway’s life into five pivotal parts through his Hemingway Collection, from his early life to his final years. The Young Hemingway is the first biography in the series focusing on Hemingway’s upbringing, the foundation his writing will be built on, and his experience during World War I.

Going through the formidable years of his life, Reynolds reveals Hemingway’s father’s own self-destructive battle with depression , his mother’s fierce sense of spiritualism and independence, and Agnes Von Kurowsky—the first woman Hemingway fell in love with.

Ernest’s Way

By Cristen Hemingway James

Hemingway’s great granddaughter Cristen Hemingway James takes us around the world to the different places the great American novelist lived, drank, fought, ran with the bulls, and wrote his most famous work. Ernest Hemingway thrived on exploring new places, creating excitement, and interacting with influential artists of the twentieth century.

In Ernest’s Way, an intimate look into Hemingway’s life is created with essential insights and information on the many places around the world he lived. This biography is the first to give a comprehensive guide to the author’s exhilarating adventures and how each place shaped his writing.

Cristen not only brings us a deeper glimpse into Hemingway’s life and work, but she also brings each of these places to life and takes us on our own Hemingway-inspired adventure.

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Featured image: National Archives and Records Administration, Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

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Ranked: The Best Hemingway Books Of All Time

By: Sean Tirman Published: Oct 26, 2023

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

Contributors

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

10. Death In The Afternoon

9. In Our Time

8. Men Without Women

7. To Have and Have Not

6. Green Hills of Africa

5. A Moveable Feast

4. For Whom The Bell Tolls

3. The Old Man and the Sea

2. The Sun Also Rises

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.

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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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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Books by 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.

A Farewell To Arms

By ernest hemingway.

Read expert recommendations

“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

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

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

“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

“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

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

Hemingway Boxed Set

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

Interviews where books by Ernest Hemingway were recommended

The best books on life in iraq during the invasion , recommended by may witwit, my year in iraq by l paul bremer iii with malcolm mcconnell, the assassination attempts against president saddam hussein by barzan al-tikriti, cultural cleansing in iraq by raymond w baker, shereen t ismael, tareq y ismael, the old man and the sea by ernest hemingway, 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

No longer at ease by chinua achebe, a moveable feast by ernest hemingway, meatless days: a memoir by sara suleri, the buddha in the attic by julie otsuka, 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 sun also rises by ernest hemingway, the autobiography of alice b toklas by gertrude stein, the book of salt by monique truong, 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 radetzky march by joseph roth, the last time i saw paris by elliot paul, travels with myself and another by martha gellhorn, 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”

The Best First World War Novels , recommended by Alice Winn

Regeneration by pat barker, a farewell to arms by ernest hemingway, birdsong by sebastian faulks, all quiet on the western front by erich maria remarque, 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.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

We ask experts to recommend the five best books in their subject and explain their selection in an interview.

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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. 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...

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the number of great classics out there, you can also take our 30-second quiz below to narrow it down quickly and get a personalized book recommendation  😉

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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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Last Updated on April 19, 2024 by BiblioLifestyle

Ernest Hemingway is an iconic figure in 20th-century literature, and he is renowned for his straightforward narrative style and masterful storytelling.  His works which are deeply rooted in his adventurous lifestyle and personal experiences, have become staples of American literature and are read and loved worldwide.  Hemingway’s stories are filled with themes of love, war, wilderness, and loss, leaving an indelible mark on modern literature. I’ve personally been a fan of Hemingway for a really long time. My first love will always be Thomas Hardy, but Hemingway is pretty up there, and I’ve reread my favorites of his numerous times. So if you’re new to reading Ernest Hemingway books or you’re looking to delve deeper into his literary genius, this guide will provide you with a roadmap to navigate his most significant works.

But first, who is Ernest Hemingway?

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in the small town of Oak Park, Illinois.  He began his writing career as a newspaper reporter for the Kansas City Star before leaving for Italy to serve as an ambulance driver during World War I, an experience that profoundly influenced his future work.  After the war, Hemingway moved to Paris and became a key figure in the influential Lost Generation.  His first major novel, “The Sun Also Rises” ( Amazon or Bookshop ) was published in 1926, followed by other successful works like “A Farewell to Arms” ( Amazon or Bookshop ) and “For Whom the Bell Tolls” ( Amazon or Bookshop ).  In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his novel “The Old Man and the Sea” ( Amazon or Bookshop .)  A lover of adventure, Hemingway lived in various parts of the world, including Paris, Spain, and Cuba.  His larger-than-life personality and adventurous lifestyle added to the allure of his work.  Much like his stories, Hemingway’s life ended tragically when he died from suicide in 1961.  His works continue to be celebrated for their impactful storytelling and unique narrative style.

About Ernest Hemingway Books

Is hemingway still worth reading.

Yes!  Hemingway’s works remain as relevant and impactful today as they were when he wrote them.  His influence on literature speaks volumes, with many modern authors citing him as one of their greatest inspirations.  While his writing style may take some getting used to, his stories are filled with depth and emotion that will stay with you long after you close the book.

What is the most famous book by Hemingway?

Hemingway’s most famous book is probably The Old Man and the Sea ( Amazon or Bookshop ,) which was published in 1952 and won him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.  It’s a personal favorite of mine, and it tells the story of an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago who goes out into the Gulf Stream looking for a big catch, only to find himself battling against both his own physical limitations as well as the great forces of nature.  The book is considered a classic for its raw emotion, captivating imagery, and simple prose.

What Hemingway book should I read first?

If you’re a beginner looking to read your first Hemingway book, I recommend starting with “The Sun Also Rises” ( Amazon or Bookshop ).  It’s considered to be one of Hemingway’s most accessible works, and it provides readers with an intimate look into the Lost Generation.  This classic novel follows the story of expatriate Americans living in Paris after World War I and is considered one of the earliest examples of modernist literature.  It delves into the themes of love, war, wanderlust, and disillusionment that are central to Hemingway’s works.

Another great place to begin is A Farewell to Arms ( Amazon or Bookshop .)  Hemingway’s 1929 novel is a semi-autobiographical account of his time during World War I.  It follows the story of an American ambulance driver, Frederic Henry, and his love affair with British nurse Catherine Barkley.  The book offers readers a beautiful and tragic war story that captures the realities of fate and the complexity of human relationships.

9 Must-Read Ernest Hemingway Books

For readers looking to explore books by Ernest Hemingway, here is a list of nine must-read books:

• The Sun Also Rises
• A Farewell to Arms
• For Whom The Bell Tolls
• The Old Man and the Sea
• To Have and Have Not
• Across the River and Into the Trees
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro
• A Moveable Feast
• Green Hills of Africa

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s first major novel, The Sun Also Rises, tells the story of a group of expatriates living in Paris after World War I and their travels to Spain.  Through his characters’ relationships and inner struggles, Hemingway explores themes of love, war, wanderlust, and disillusionment.  It remains one of Hemingway’s most popular works and is credited with introducing the Lost Generation to the world.

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A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

A semi-autobiographical account of his time during World War I, Hemingway’s 1929 novel follows the story of an American ambulance driver named Frederic Henry and his love affair with British nurse Catherine Barkley.  It offers readers a beautiful and tragic war story that captures the realities of fate and the complexity of human relationships.

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s 1940 novel is set during the Spanish Civil War and follows an American volunteer named Robert Jordan as he helps a group of anti-fascist guerrillas behind enemy lines.  It explores themes of courage and sacrifice while capturing the reality of war and its devastating effects.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s 1952 novella tells the story of an old Cuban fisherman named Santiago who goes out into the Gulf Stream looking for a big catch, only to find himself battling against both his own physical limitations and a giant marlin. This timeless classic captures the struggle between man and nature and explores themes of courage, perseverance, and faith.

To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway

This novel follows the story of a fishing boat captain called Harry Morgan who is forced to become involved with smuggling in order to make ends meet. It interweaves themes of love, poverty, and morality and captures Hemingway’s signature style of simple, direct prose.

Across the River and Into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s 1950 novel follows an aging American colonel named Richard Cantwell as he reminisces about his past while on a duck-hunting trip near Venice. He reflects on his life’s accomplishments, regrets, and relationships while also struggling to come to terms with his own mortality.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

This short story is considered one of Hemingway’s best works and is included in most anthologies of his work. It follows the story of an American writer, Harry, and his last days as he lies dying on the slopes of Kilimanjaro while reflecting on the choices he has made with his life. The Snows of Kilimanjaro captures Hemingway’s signature blend of tragedy and raw emotion.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s posthumously published memoir is set in 1920s Paris and recounts the author’s experiences with friends like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound.  It offers readers a unique look into Hemingway’s life as an expatriate writer in Paris and explores his relationships with some of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway

Hemingway’s memoir-style travelogue chronicles his big game-hunting adventures in East Africa.  In this work, Hemingway describes his experiences in lyrical language and muses on the meaning of life.  It provides readers with a unique glimpse into Hemingway’s mind while exploring the themes of courage, death, and masculinity.

Even More About Ernest Hemingway Books

What themes does ernest hemingway commonly explore in his books.

Hemingway often explores themes of courage, loyalty, love, loss, adventure, and nostalgia in his books.  He has a unique ability to capture the beauty and tragedy of the human experience in ways that feel both personal and universal.  He was one of the first authors to explore more complex themes like disillusionment, trauma, and death in a straightforward yet powerful way.

Are Hemingway books considered classics?

Yes, many of Hemingway’s books are considered classics.  The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and To Have and Have Not are just a few examples of his classic works.  These books have withstood the test of time and continue to be read by readers around the world.

Why was The Sun Also Rises banned?

The Sun Also Rises was banned in Italy and Spain due to its perceived anti-war message.  It was also criticized by some American readers for its frank depictions of alcohol abuse and promiscuity.  Despite the controversy, it remains one of Hemingway’s most famous works and is widely considered a classic of modern literature.

In what order should I read Hemingway books?

There are many different ways to approach reading Hemingway’s books.  One way could be to start with his earlier novels and progress chronologically through the years, as each of these works captures a different era in Hemingway’s life.  Another option is, to begin with one of his more well-known classics like The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms and then explore some of his lesser-known works.  Whichever way you choose, diving into Hemingway’s books will give you a unique insight into the mind of one of America’s greatest authors.  So there is no right or wrong way to read Hemingway.

Here is a list of my nine must-read Ernest Hemingway books in order of publication:

• The Sun Also Rises (1926)
• A Farewell to Arms (1929)
• Green Hills of Africa (1935)
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936)
• To Have and Have Not (1937)
• For Whom The Bell Tolls (1940)
• Across the River and Into the Trees (1950)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
• A Moveable Feast (1964)

Ernest Hemingway’s Writing

What is so special about hemingway.

Hemingway’s writing style was revolutionary.  His often minimalist prose and spare dialogue were a stark contrast to the flowery, melodramatic writing of many of his contemporaries.  His stories explored themes of courage, loss, love, and adventure in ways that felt deeply personal and resonated with readers.  In addition to being an excellent storyteller, Hemingway had a unique sense of humor and wit that made his books enjoyable to read.

How did Ernest Hemingway influence literature?

Hemingway’s influence on literature is undeniable.  His writing style has had a profound impact on modern authors, and he is widely credited for ushering in the era of modernism.  His works have inspired countless authors and continue to influence the way we write and think about literature today.

What grade level did Hemingway write at?

Ernest Hemingway is known for his accessible and straightforward writing style.  This has prompted many to investigate the reading level of his work.  According to the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, Hemingway’s writing falls roughly around a 5th-grade reading level.  However, it’s essential to note that while his sentences may be short and his vocabulary simple, the themes and ideas he explores in his works are profound and complex, which makes his books appealing to readers of all ages and reading levels.

What do you think about these Ernest Hemingway books?

So whether you’re just starting out with Hemingway or looking for some of his classics, these nine books are essential reading for any fan.  Ernest Hemingway’s works have inspired and influenced generations of readers and writers, leaving a lasting legacy that lives on in literature today.

Have you read any books by Ernest Hemingway?  Are any of these books or his other works on your TBR?   What book by Ernest Hemingway is your favorite?  What other Ernest Hemingway books would you add to this list?  Let us talk about it in the comments below.

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Ernest Hemingway: A Biography Paperback – September 11, 2018

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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.'

(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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