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HEMINGWAY: Greatest Short Stories
Ernest Hemingway, (1899 – 1961) was an American novelist and short-story writer, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. He was noted both for the intense masculinity of his writings and for his adventurous and widely publicized life. A consummately contradictory man, Hemingway achieved a fame surpassed by few, if any, American authors of the 20th century. The virile nature of his writing, which attempted to re-create the exact physical sensations he experienced in wartime, big-game hunting, and bullfighting, in fact masked an aesthetic sensibility of great delicacy. Greatest Short Stories contains an exquisite selection of the most acclaimed and beloved short stories by this iconic American writer and introduces readers to the hallmarks of the Hemingway a lean, tough prose, enlivened by an ear for the colloquial and an eye for the realistic.
88 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 25, 2023
19 people are currently reading
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About the author
Ernest Hemingway
2,268 books32.6k followersErnest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he spent six months as a cub reporter for The Kansas City Star before enlisting in the Red Cross. He served as an ambulance driver on the Italian Front in World War I and was seriously wounded in 1918. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. He married Hadley Richardson in 1921, the first of four wives. They moved to Paris where he worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and fell under the influence of the modernist writers and artists of the 1920s' "Lost Generation" expatriate community. His debut novel The Sun Also Rises was published in 1926.
He divorced Richardson in 1927 and married Pauline Pfeiffer. They divorced after he returned from the Spanish Civil War, where he had worked as a journalist and which formed the basis for his 1940 novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. Martha Gellhorn became his third wife in 1940. He and Gellhorn separated after he met Mary Welsh Hemingway in London during World War II. Hemingway was present with Allied troops as a journalist at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris. He maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, in the 1930s and in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s. On a 1954 trip to Africa, he was seriously injured in two plane accidents on successive days, leaving him in pain and ill health for much of the rest of his life. In 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where, on July 2, 1961 (a couple weeks before his 62nd birthday), he killed himself using one of his shotguns.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 31, 2024
Really, it should be called Some of the Greatest Short Stories. There are quite a few not included that could have been. The book could be a bit longer and still not be very long.
"Hills Like White Elephants": One of those great stories where you are just dropping into a scene from people's lives and then just as suddenly leaving. And yes, it's much more effective for never coming right out and saying what it's about. It wouldn't be the same story if it did. It's like the characters themselves do not want to utter the word.
"The End of Something": It's fine.
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place": Another brief but powerful story that quickly but methodically ramps up the existential dread until we get the frantic nada prayer at the end.
"Soldier's Home": Unlike "Big Two-Hearted River," this story seems to be about what it is about. But it is still a powerful depiction of what living through war has done to the central character. The scene with the mom is very sad.
"The Killers": Very pulpy for Hemingway, and I do like those kinds of stories. But it isn't as powerful for me as most other Hemingway stories. But I do like the ambiguity and ambivalence.
"Big Two-Hearted River" Parts 1 & 2: The "iceberg theory." It's about someone not processing their trauma, and except for a brief recollection in part 1, we don't even get the sense that there is anything to process. The two parts are really one story and it's a great story because the focus on all the little details of Nick's tasks from Hemingway mirror Nick's own focus on what he's doing so that he doesn't think too much about what has happened to him. I am not always in the mood for Hemingway, but he wrote some pretty good short stories.
"Hills Like White Elephants": One of those great stories where you are just dropping into a scene from people's lives and then just as suddenly leaving. And yes, it's much more effective for never coming right out and saying what it's about. It wouldn't be the same story if it did. It's like the characters themselves do not want to utter the word.
"The End of Something": It's fine.
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place": Another brief but powerful story that quickly but methodically ramps up the existential dread until we get the frantic nada prayer at the end.
"Soldier's Home": Unlike "Big Two-Hearted River," this story seems to be about what it is about. But it is still a powerful depiction of what living through war has done to the central character. The scene with the mom is very sad.
"The Killers": Very pulpy for Hemingway, and I do like those kinds of stories. But it isn't as powerful for me as most other Hemingway stories. But I do like the ambiguity and ambivalence.
"Big Two-Hearted River" Parts 1 & 2: The "iceberg theory." It's about someone not processing their trauma, and except for a brief recollection in part 1, we don't even get the sense that there is anything to process. The two parts are really one story and it's a great story because the focus on all the little details of Nick's tasks from Hemingway mirror Nick's own focus on what he's doing so that he doesn't think too much about what has happened to him. I am not always in the mood for Hemingway, but he wrote some pretty good short stories.
January 1, 2026
I just had to read "A Clean, Well Lighted Place" so I got this set of Hemingway's short stories. It was perfect. The five stories included were all definitely great as short stories go. The book, overall, is instructive about Hemingway and his writing style, these particularly stories and short stories in general. I'm glad to have read a small number of his short stories. I've read some of his books and his most famous short story, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and have always enjoyed reading his work. If you really want to learn about the man, read "A Movable Feast."
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews