For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Segovia.
First edition cover
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Best known for an economical, understated style that significantly influenced later 20th-century writers, he is often romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle, and outspoken and blunt public image. Most of Hemingway's works were published between the mid-1920s and mid-1950s, including seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works. His writings have become classics of American literature; he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, while three of his novels, four short-story collections and three nonfiction works were published posthumously.
Hemingway working on For Whom the Bell Tolls at the Sun Valley Lodge, 1939
Hemingway was the second child and first son born to Clarence and Grace.
Hemingway in uniform in Milan in 1918, where he drove ambulances for two months until he was wounded.
Hemingway's 1923 passport photo; at this time, he lived in Paris with his wife Hadley and worked as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star Weekly.