The Short Stories: The First Forty-nine Stories with a Brief Preface by the Author Paperback – August 1, 1995

I've seen the movies but have never read any Hemingway. This is a great introduction to this writing style. Really impressed with his ability to tell great in-depth stories with the economy of words. Love this

Ernest Hemingway was one of the first celebrity writers. In fact, his life was so interesting that, for a time, it looked like he was more interesting than what he wrote. While I read A Farewell to Arms and The Sun Also Rises relatively early in life, I remember really getting into Carlos Baker's biography of the "larger than life" author. At first, I steered clear of Hemingway's short stories; on the whole, I am not a big fan of short stories. They're over too fast, for one thing, and add to this a professor I had along the way who likened every short story to the archetypical story of Adam and Eve, and my interest in the short story form evaporated like yesterday's rainwater. Then in the 70's I saw a Hollywood adaptation of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories (and especially after seeing Paul Newman play the washed up boxer in "The Battler"), I dusted off my copy of EH's short stories, and read them all over the course of a couple of days and was blown away by them. Later, when I taught "Big Two-Hearted River" and "My Old Man" to the American Authors class in a local high school, I had some of the most soul-searching discussions with the students. Often, I would read one of the stories aloud to them and then we'd talk about it. What was there about these stories that brought the class alive and so open to discussion? One reason might be that they are written so simply and, yet, pack such an emotional punch the reader hardly sees it coming. In "Big Two-Hearted River", for example, he's not just telling about a fishing expedition, catching and cleaning fish, packing them up for the trip home; he's got that bit about the ants on the burning log which transfers quite nicely as an allegory for human existence. In his laconic, yet sophisticated style--unparalleled by any author before or since, Hemingway creates a visceral reaction in the reader; the reader, without a lot of fancy footwork, EXPERIENCES what the first breakup feels like ( "The End of Something"), or how it feels to get drunk for the first time ("The Three Day Blow"). The plight of the returning soldier ("A Soldier's Home"), and the desperation of the dispossessed (Old Man on a Bridge) are unearthed in the reader as though he is returning home or sitting alone at the bridge during wartime. We all know, that in life Hemingway was all for grace under pressure and possessed an almost manic push to experience everything. In his short stories, especially, we can truly experience what it really feels like to be alive and never have to leave our recliner. Heartfelt thanks for that, Ernest.

I got this book for my wife and she is enjoying it very much.

I have a mixed response to this book. The manuscript materials are interesting--we can get insight from them into Hem's process of composition. But it is somewhat unwieldy, awkward--because the story and the manuscript materials are presented consecutively. OK, this is perhaps inevitable. But it is hard to move back and forth, back and forth from the story to (in a number of cases) three or four other other separate sections, where the various manuscript materials are presented. Again, OK, I understand. But in an ideal world, the volume would have been prepared with at least some examples of the story on one page, and the manuscript version on the facing page. Then, you could do some much easier comparison.Something else--Buyer Beware! I bought this book thinking that it would be an update of the so-called Finca Vigia collection of Hem's stories. But it is NOT a complete collection. In fact, I would say that the title is misleading. Deliberately misleading?The book should be titled "The SELECTED Short Stories...." It does not include the full text of In Our Time, for example--so that none of the inter-chapters from that important book (1925) can be found here. Such great stories as "The End of Something" and "The Battler"--these are absent as well. "The End of Something" is not only a terrific story, but from other reading I have done, I know that the manuscript materials are very interesting. It should be in the book.All of this is troubling indeed. In effect the Hem Estate and the publisher are implying that here in this book are "the short stories" of Hem. But they are not all here. If you want all of the stories, you have to buy the Finca Vigia edition. And that volume itself is flawed--it needs to be redone.

I am specifically writing about the Hemingway Library edition of the collected short stories. I have not read any Hemingway for many years-really since high school. Rather than jump into his novels I thought I would start with the short stories. I am not that knowledgeable about Hemingway in any expert way-as opposed to many other writers whom I have read, studied and re-read( Joyce, Lowry, James and Tolstoy just to name a few). I found these stories to be written in a simple straightforward style which is deceptive in its plainness. Natural man , unnatural man, God or lack thereof, cynicism, idealism thwarted, suicide , despair, existential angst, modern man lost in purpose, cruelty, senseless violence, sexual politics-these themes are in abundance. I can see why Hemingway later committed suicide. This edition is interesting if you care about his revisions and changes to the stories as an insight into his creative process. If you don’t care you can choose another edition or skip the supplementary material.

I would have preferred not to have the multiple versions, I am interested only in the 'finished version' of each short story. The essay at the beginning is very interesting.

Amazing skill in writing a short story. Varied and possibly a bit dated now, some quite colonial in content, but wonderful insight into how to draw a reader in to the story. Great characterisation and well worth a read.

This book is not a book of stories, or rather it is but , its stories from original others notes, I.e line crossed out or edited by either the author or the publisher, .

Repetitive chapters. Waste of space. Money ill-spent.

Quality of the recording was excellent but I just did not like the stories