The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition [Hardcover]

Ernest Hemingway (Author), John Hemingway (Foreword), Patrick Hemingway (Foreword), Gregory Hemingway (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1987

The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway will stand as the definitive collection by the man whose craft and vision remains an enduring influence on generations of readers and writers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The subtitle of this monumental collection refers to the home (Lookout Farm) that Hemingway owned in Cuba from 1939 to 1959. That time frame accounts for most of the short fiction, published and unpublished, that followed the major collection issued in 1938, The First Forty-Nine. There are 60 stories in all. Of the 21 not included in the 1938 collection, the seven heretofore unpublished pieces will interest readers most. Three are especially good. "A Train Trip" and "The Porter" are self-contained excerpts from an abandoned novel that match in tone and appeal the early Hemingway work in which he explored the adolescent sensibility exposed to an adult world that is exciting but at the same time threatening and morally complex. Drawing from the author's experiences in Europe during World War II, "Black Ass at the Crossroads" is excellent in its detailing of violent action, portraying an ambush of German soldiers from the point of view of an American infantry officer, depressed and angry over the suffering he has inflicted in the course of battle. The other previously unpublished pieces include a Spanish Civil War story reminiscent of Hemingway's play, The Fifth Column; two quite touching stories about a father's disappointments with a troubled son; and a long section comprising four chapters from an early version of the novel, Islands in the Stream. Intrinsically readable, the collection is also significant in drawing together much that was unavailable or difficult to access.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A thoughtfully arranged, comprehensive edition of Hemingway's short fiction justifies publication. This is not it. At best, it offers convenience rather than creativity or even completeness: it omits five stories published two years ago. It reprints the "the first 49" stories (1938), adds 14 subsequently published, and appends seven hitherto unpublished. What is lacking is a fresh reordering of the storiesthematic, chronological, or stylistic. Further, three of the unpublished pieces are not stories but excerpts from novels. None of the new material is artistically significant. Yet each bears the hallmark of Hemingway's geniuswhich will survive even this. Arthur Waldhorn, City Coll.,
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 650 pages
• Publisher: Scribners; Finca Vigia ed edition (November 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684186683
• ISBN-13: 978-0684186689
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More 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

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

196 of 201 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The single finest edition of Hemingway's work., October 8, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (Finca Vigia Ed.) (Paperback)

Hemingway's short stories were always a bit more finely crafted than his novels. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway allows the reader to examine and even partake in the development of Hemingway as a writer; from his early Nick Adams stories, a few of which went on to become The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell To Arms, To Have And Have Not; to the mature Hemingway who wrote about his experiences as a reporter during the Spanish Civil War and later in Europe between the wars. This work contains some of the finest shorts of American literature. (Read The Short Happy Life Of Francis Macomber; The Snows of Kilimanjaro; A Clean Well Lighted Place; Big Two-Hearted River (parts I & II); Hills Like White Elephants--too many good ones to mention them all.) There are some poor stories as well but even these are well constructed. In short, the definitive volume of Hemingway--better than any single novel or other collection. A must have.... (I'm holding mine in my hand as I type with the other--) Little known fact: The Finca Vigia Edition contains an editorial change in the story A Clean Well Lighted Place--a moved line of dialogue--which was made by a silly editor after Hemingway's death and which renders the text incorrect with respect to his orignal published manuscript. In fact there are no correct versions of this short story presently in print. The accurate version, though, may be found in the Library of Congress.

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A true original - Master of the Short Story, January 31, 2003

By 

M. Dog (Everywhere and Nowhere) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition (Paperback)

Hemingway is one of the finest writers this country has every produced. In these politically correct times, he was fallen into disfavor, and that is a crying shame. His terse, lean lines are so easy to mock today, but what people forget is that he created that style, molded it and trimmed it down from the long-winded, more European style of writing that was so popular before his advent. As a short story writer, he is the master. Not a wasted word, and every word carved in its perfect place. When a Hemingway character plunges their arm into a cold stream, the reader can feel the ice cold numbing the fingers. His short story, "The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber" turned me onto reading as a teenager. So much came from him, and so much still comes from him. Raymond Carver, James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard and many others all walk a clear path that he cut through thick brush.

45 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A master of telling a story, June 29, 1999

By 

Frank-Tommy Olsen - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition (Paperback)

The greatest short story writers history produced so far; Chekov, Gorky, Korolenko, Maupassant, Bashevis Singer, William Trevor and of course Hemingway, were more than anything else masters of this type of fiction. Even if they all wrote other great pieces, they were (Trevor still is) truly dedicated to the short story. Ernest Hemingway even said that he had "never yet set out to write a novel - it's always a short story that moves into being a novel". Hemingway's short stories are of the type of fiction that grows on you - becomes better with time - and can be read over and over again. You are brought into the "Hemingway world", have a scene or an event described so vivid that you are almost present, and when the story is over not much might have happened, but you have been there - you felt it and saw it - it all happened there in front of you. Such a big collection of stories over decades of writing will have a few pieces less good than some of the other most brilliant ones, but they are all interesting. From "A very short story" - only two pages long, but with the essence of what really happened between Hemingway and the Red Cross nurse in Italy, that later was to be A Farewell to Arms - to the best known, like "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber", "Hills like White Elephants", "Cat in the Rain" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro". Personally I have many other favourites and I will probably come back to them and keep reading Hemingway stories for the rest of my life.