A Farewell to Arms

A Farewell to Arms was written by Ernest Hemingway in the late 1920s. Set during World War I, it is the first-person account of Lieutenant Frederick Henry, an American ambulance driver serving in the Italian army. The now-classic novel explores love, loss, and the brutal realities of war, capturing the horror of war as well as Henry’s relationships with others, most importantly with the English nurse Catherine Barkley. The book established Hemingway as an author of note and became his first bestseller. A 1929 New York Times review called it “a moving and beautiful book.” A Farewell to Arms was not, however, without controversy. First published in serial installments in Scribner’s Magazine, the issue containing the first installment was banned from Boston newsstands as pornographic—despite any graphic descriptions of sex.