Top 16 Best Hemingway Books Updated 04 /2024

Ernest Hemingway used real people, like his parents, friends, and other writers, to make his characters in his short stories and novels stand out. He also used real places and events to make the settings and stories more interesting. A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, and The Old Man and the Sea were all written by Hemingway based on his own experiences, friendships, and observations, no matter which book he was writing at the time.

Because Hemingway wrote about different things and had different adventures at different points in his life, it's hard to put his stories in a certain order. However, the following is a list of his best-known works and how they add to the Hemingway legacy.

The Sun Also Rises

Hemingway's first novel is at the top of my list because it shows how he stayed true to his Midwestern values as he learned about new things and values in Europe after World War I. He tells his friends and acquaintances that he is worried about the valueless lives of these characters from the "Lost Generation," and he starts his own personal and literary search for meaning in a world that doesn't seem to have a God. Pedro Romero, the matador, is a hero in Spain during a fiesta when people drink a lot and don't do anything important. Here, we see the beginnings of the Hemingway Code. He acts with honor and courage.

That's why the book is at the top of my list. It reveals how Hemingway tried to write in a new and different way by portraying not only good, but also bad, and ugly things. Not everyone who knew Hemingway thought The Sun Also Rises was good. His friends saw themselves as self-indulgent, drunk, and promiscuous in his unflattering but honest portrayals. No one else liked it. His mother said it was "one of the filthiest books I've read in a long, long time."

A Farewell to Arms

His second novel is at the top of my list because it is a story about events that changed and changed his world view. During World War I, Hemingway was an ambulance driver in Italy. When he left the safety of the Midwest, he went to Italy in search of adventure as an ambulance driver. The Midwesterner was ready to show honor and courage when he joined the war to end all wars. He was killed in a trench. Then he fell in love, thought about getting married, and was turned down by the woman he loved. His encounter with death, his wound, and his first experience with love all led him to write down a set of rules for how to deal with life's problems.

Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms as a result of his time in Italy. It started a theme that would become one of the most common in his novels: facing death. It's hard for modern women to relate to Catherine Barkley's character because she's so old-fashioned. The book still shows that Hemingway used what he learned in Italy to show that war brings out the best in men and women.

The Old Man and the Sea

His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Across the River and into the Trees, came out after people didn't like it. Hemingway wrote it to protect his reputation as a good writer. Based on what he did in Cuba, he came up with a character of an old fisherman. A great marlin is caught by an old man on his own, but sharks take it away. After being a champion arm-wrestler, the old man tried to get back into the game. Hemingway did the same thing.

Hemingway came up with a code for living based on his experiences in World War I, when a man has to deal with something that can't be overcome. The old man is now following that code. The old man shows courage and grace when he fights the sharks, believing that "a man can be destroyed, but not defeated."

In fact, the book had a great reception and was a big hit. On his boat and in the Gulf Stream, Hemingway heard on his boat radio that his book had won the Pulitzer Prize.

To Have and Have Not 

In To Have and Have Not, Hemingway shows that he has become more aware of how money and social class work. There are three types of people in this book: people who work on the docks and at Sloppy Joe's, rich people who park their boats in the harbor, and illegal immigrants from China who are brought to Key West to make the city's new Chinatowns more popular.

Hemingway comes close to saying that social and political changes are needed to help the working man in this book from the 1930s. In fact, Hemingway doesn't think that the New Deal's solutions were the answer. As a result, the fate of the novel's main character, Harry Morgan, shows the limits of personal freedom, self-reliance, and grace under pressure. Harry says, "No matter how a man alone ain't got no f—-ing chance."

The Nick Adams Stories

It gives a glimpse into the life of the young Hemingway through these short stories. As a child, Ernest would go with his father, Dr. Clarence Hemingway, when he did free medical work for Indians, women who were giving birth, and people who were in a variety of life-threatening situations in the Indian camps of northern Michigan. "Indian Camp" is about one of these trips. In the hospital, Nick is with his father, who is trying to give birth to a new baby. During a Caesarian, Nick watches his father use a jackknife that has been sterilized in boiling water. A Native American woman has been giving birth for two days now.

When you read "A Soldier's Home," you learn about Hemingway's relationship with his parents and how he felt when he came back from World War I and didn't see his family or live in Oak Park anymore.

For Whom the Bell Tolls 

Based on his experiences as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War, this novel has a main character who shows grace under pressure and a plot that combines the interest and conflict of love and war. As in his other works, Hemingway draws on his friendships and personal experiences to make his stories. American professor Robert Merriman is the model for Robert Jordan. Merriman was a commander in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and died during the last attack on Belchite. Marisa: The name comes from a nurse of the same name. Early in the war, she was gang raped by Nationalist soldiers. El Tajo, an Andalusian gorge, cuts through the town of Rondo. In the early days of the Spanish Civil War, a political massacre like that led by Pablo took place there, too.

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