A Farewell to Arms

Set in the waning days of the First World War, A Farewell to Arms (1929) is the epic love story of American ambulance driver Frederic Henry and British V.A. D. Catherine Barkley, drawn together yet torn apart by the tides of war. Drawing on his own experiences during this time, A Farewell to Arms is one of Ernest Hemingway’ s best known and loved literary works.

As a youth of 18, Ernest Hemingway was eager to fight in the Great War. Poor vision kept him out of the army, so he joined the ambulance corps instead and was sent to France. Then he transferred to Italy where he became the first American wounded in that country during World War I. Hemingway came out of the European battlefields with a medal for valor and a wealth of experience that he would, 10 years later, spin into literary gold with A Farewell to Arms.