II.

A Writer of the Lost Generation

One of the foremost authors of the era between the two world wars, Hemingway’s early works depict the lives of two types of people. One type consists of men and women who have lost faith in moral values and live with cynical disregard for anything but their own emotional needs. The other type is men of simple character and primitive emotions, such as boxers and bullfighters, who wage courageous and usually futile battles against the circumstances of their lives.

Hemingway’s earliest works include the collections of short stories Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), his first work; In Our Time (1924), tales reflecting his experiences as a youth in the northern Michigan woods; Men Without Women (1927), a volume that included “The Killers,” remarkable for its description of impending doom; and Winner Take Nothing (1933), stories characterizing people in unfortunate circumstances in Europe.

The Sun Also Rises (1926), the novel that established Hemingway's reputation, is the story of a group of morally irresponsible Americans and Britons living in France and Spain, members of the so-called lost generation of the post-World War I period. Hemingway's second important novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), is the story of a love affair in wartime Italy between an American officer in the Italian ambulance service and a British nurse. The novel was followed by two nonfiction works, Death in the Afternoon (1932), prose pieces mainly about bullfighting; and Green Hills of Africa (1935), accounts of big-game hunting.