A Farewell to Arms: The Special Edition

A special edition of Hemingway’s powerful autobiographical war classic, including the author’s 1948 introduction, his early drafts, and all of the 47 alternative endingsWITH A FOREWORD BY PATRICK HEMINGWAY AND AN INTRODUCTION BY SEAN HEMINGWAYIn 1918 Ernest Hemingway went to war. He volunteered for ambulance service in Italy, was wounded and twice decorated. Out of his experience came A Farewell to Arms. Hemingway’s unforgettable book recreates the fear, the courage and the comradeship of warfare with total conviction. But A Farewell to Arms is not only a novel of war, it is also a love story of immense drama and uncompromising passion.This special edition lifts the lid on Hemingway’s creative process. Included here are his early drafts, all 47 alternative endings and the author’s 1948 introduction, providing a fascinating glimpse into the construction of this great masterpiece.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born in Chicago in 1899, the son of a doctor and the second of six children. After a stint as an ambulance driver at the Italian front, Hemingway came home to America in 1919, only to return to the battlefield – this time as a reporter on the Greco-Turkish war – in 1922. Resigning from journalism to focus on his writing instead, he moved to Paris where he renewed his earlier friendship with fellow American expatriates such as Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein. Through the years, Hemingway travelled widely and wrote avidly, becoming an internationally recognized literary master of his craft. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, following the publication of The Old Man and the Sea. He died in 1961.