Product Description

Before he gained wide fame as a novelist, Ernest Hemingway established his literary reputation with his short stories. This collection, The Short Stories, originally published in 1938, is definitive. Among these forty-nine short stories are Hemingway's earliest efforts, written when he was a young foreign correspondent in Paris, and such masterpieces as "Hills Like White Elephants," "The Killers," "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber," and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Set in the varied landscapes of Spain, Africa, and the American Midwest, this collection traces the development and maturation of Hemingway's distinct and revolutionary storytelling style -- from the plain, bald language of his first story, "Up in Michigan," to the seamless prose and spare, eloquent pathos of "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" to the expansive solitude of the Big Two-Hearted River stories. These stories showcase the singular talent of a master, the most important American writer of the twentieth century.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #194977 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 464 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780684837864
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
Philadelphia Inquirer Keach gives just the right voice to the stories of Hemingway...Anyone who simply wants a good story, well told and well read, should let Keach take charge and just dive in. -- Review

Review
Philadelphia Inquirer

Keach gives just the right voice to the stories of Hemingway...Anyone who simply wants a good story, well told and well read, should let Keach take charge and just dive in.

About the Author
Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.

Customer Reviews

Best of the Century?
If you like short story collections, you cannot do better than this (unless, perhaps, you buy Hemingway's Finca Vigia edition, which contains all of these and several more). There is so much packed into the short, terse sentences that make up these stories that you will get new things out of them each time, and no matter how many times, you read them. For my money, these stories and "A Moveable Feast," his memoir of Paris, represent Hemingway's most heartfelt and intimate writing.

No Match for Hemingway
I read this book in two weeks, and many of the stories I read over and over, such as "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" and the Nick Adams stories. Hemingway's writing is sparse on adverbs and adjectives; his is straight forward English. This allows the reader to read through each story without having to reread a paragraph for clarity. The images and emotions that Hemingway evokes through his prose are clear and sharp. At times I felt as though I were right there with Nick Adams throwing my line into the fast-moving stream; as though I were in the bull-fighting arena watching Manuel Garcia perform his veronicas; as though I were holding Frances Macomber's gun as the buffalo was charging at him. Some of the stories I didn't particularly like (On the Quai at Smyrna, Mr. and Mrs. Elliott) but the strong stories made up for them. No wonder Hemingway won the Nobel Prize. Certainly the judges for that award looked back at his stories in deciding. Buy the book and enjoy it!

A review of the CD set, not the author's work
There is little that I could say about Hemingway's short stories that hasn't been said before. But while Ernest Hemingway had magic with the written word, his old recordings of reading his own stories on tape are not good. Instead of sounding like how I would expect the story to be told (out loud), the author's voice is shrill and, in places, sounds more like an impression of Mark Twain. Stacy Keach is hands down the ideal voice of Hemingway's short stories (although I give four stars to Charleton Heston). His readings are straightforward, he employs accents where applicable, and minimizes the "he said" and "she said" words, making them place holders rather than part of the story itself. Based on the three volumes of Hemingway short stories, I am sufficiently enamored of Keach's readings to make me delve into other works of fiction that Keach has recorded on CD.