In Our Time (short story collection)
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''In Our Time'' is the title of
Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...
's first collection of
short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
, published in
1925 Events January * January 1 ** The Syrian Federation is officially dissolved, the State of Aleppo and the State of Damascus having been replaced by the State of Syria. * January 3 – Benito Mussolini makes a pivotal speech in the Itali ...
by
Boni & Liveright Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American trade book publisher established in 1917 in New York City by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright. Over the next sixteen years the firm, which changed its name to Horace Live ...
, New York, and of a collection of vignettes published in 1924 in France titled ''in our time''. Its title is derived from the English ''
Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...
'', "Give peace in our time, O Lord". The collection's publication history was complex. It began with six prose
vignettes Vignette may refer to: * Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy * Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters * Vignette (literature), short, i ...
published by Ezra Pound in the 1923 edition of ''
The Little Review ''The Little Review'', an American literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson in Chicago's historic Fine Arts Building, published literary and art work from 1914 to May 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound, Anderson created a m ...
'', to which Hemingway added twelve vignettes and had published in Paris in 1924 as the in our time edition (with a lower-case title). He wrote fourteen short stories for the 1925 edition, including "
Indian Camp "Indian Camp" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. The story was first published in 1924 in Ford Madox Ford's literary magazine ''Transatlantic Review'' in Paris and republished by Boni & Liveright in Hemingway's first American volume of ...
" and "
Big Two-Hearted River "Big Two-Hearted River" is a two-part short story written by American author Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of ''In Our Time'', the first American volume of Hemingway's short stories. It features a single prota ...
", two of his best-known Nick Adams stories. He composed "
On the Quai at Smyrna "On the Quai at Smyrna" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, first published in the 1930 Scribner's edition of the '' In Our Time'' collection of short stories, then titled "Introduction by the author".Oliver (1999), 251 Accompanying it w ...
" for the 1930 edition. The stories' themes – of alienation, loss, grief, separation – continue the work Hemingway began with the vignettes, which include descriptions of acts of war, bullfighting and current events. The collection is known for its spare language and oblique depiction of emotion, through a style known as Hemingway's "theory of omission" (
iceberg theory The iceberg theory or theory of omission is a writing technique coined by American writer Ernest Hemingway. As a young journalist, Hemingway had to focus his newspaper reports on immediate events, with very little context or interpretation. When h ...
). According to his biographer Michael Reynolds, among Hemingway's
canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...
, "none is more confusing ... for its several parts – biographical, literary, editorial, and bibliographical – contain so many contradictions that any analysis will be flawed."Reynolds (1995), 35 Hemingway's writing style attracted attention, with literary critic
Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...
saying it was "of the first distinction";quoted in Wagner-Martin (2002), 4 the 1925 edition of ''In Our Time'' is considered one of Hemingway's early masterpieces.


Background and publication history

Hemingway was 19 years old when in 1918, shortly after he was posted to the Italian Front as a
Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...
ambulance driver, he sustained a severe wound from mortar fire. For the next four months, he recuperated in a
Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
hospital, where he fell in love with nurse
Agnes von Kurowsky Agnes Hannah von Kurowsky Stanfield (January 5, 1892 – November 25, 1984) was an American nurse who inspired the character "Catherine Barkley" in Ernest Hemingway's 1929 novel ''A Farewell to Arms''. Kurowsky served as a nurse in an American Re ...
. Shortly after his return to the US, she informed him that she was engaged to an Italian officer. Soon after, he turned to journalism.Putnam, Thomas (2006)
"Hemingway on War and Its Aftermath"
''Prologue Magazine''. Vol. 38, No. 1. Retrieved November 30, 2011
A few months after marrying
Hadley Richardson Elizabeth Hadley Richardson (November 9, 1891 – January 22, 1979) was the first wife of American author Ernest Hemingway. The two married in 1921 after a courtship of less than a year, and moved to Paris within months of being married. In Paris, ...
in 1921, he and his wife moved to Paris on the strength of her private income and an agreement with the ''
Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and pa ...
'' that would supply them with freelance articles on whatever caught his fancy. In time the paper asked him to write features on the Greco-Turkish War and the situation in post-war Germany.Desnoyers, Megan Floyd
"Ernest Hemingway: A Storyteller's Legacy"
JFK Library. Retrieved September 30, 2011
In Paris he befriended
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
, Ezra Pound,
F. Scott Fitzgerald Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
,
James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...
,
Ford Madox Ford Ford Madox Ford (né Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer ( ); 17 December 1873 – 26 June 1939) was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals '' The English Review'' and ''The Transatlantic Review'' were instrumental in ...
,
Morley Callaghan Edward Morley Callaghan (February 22, 1903 – August 25, 1990) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and TV and radio personality. Biography Of Canadian/English-immigrant parentage,Clara Thomas, ''Canadian Novelists 192 ...
, and
John Dos Passos John Roderigo Dos Passos (; January 14, 1896 – September 28, 1970) was an American novelist, most notable for his ''U.S.A.'' trilogy. Born in Chicago, Dos Passos graduated from Harvard College in 1916. He traveled widely as a young man, visit ...
, establishing a particularly strong friendship with Pound. Pound's influence extended to promoting the young author, placing six of Hemingway's poems in the magazine ''
Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
''. In August he asked Hemingway to contribute a small volume to the
modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
series he was editing, and
Bill Bird William Augustus Bird (1888–1963) was an American journalist, now remembered for his Three Mountains Press, a small press he ran while in Paris in the 1920s for the Consolidated Press Association. Taken over by Nancy Cunard in 1928, it beca ...
was publishing for his
Three Mountains Press William Augustus Bird (1888–1963) was an American journalist, now remembered for his Three Mountains Press, a small press he ran while in Paris in the 1920s for the Consolidated Press Association. Taken over by Nancy Cunard in 1928, it becam ...
, which Pound envisioned as the "Inquest into the state of the modern English language". Pound's commission turned Hemingway's attention toward fiction, and had profound consequences on his development as a writer.Cohen (2003), 107–108 On December 2, 1922, nearly all of Hemingway's early writing – his juvenilia and apprentice fiction, including the duplicates – was lost.Reynolds (2000), 26 He had been sent on assignment to cover the Conference of Lausanne, leaving Hadley, who was sick with a cold, behind in Paris. In
Lausanne , neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR ...
he spent days covering the conference, and the evenings drinking with
Lincoln Steffens Lincoln Austin Steffens (April 6, 1866 – August 9, 1936) was an American investigative journalist and one of the leading muckrakers of the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. He launched a series of articles in '' McClure's'', called " ...
.Mellow (1992), 205 Before setting off to meet him in Switzerland, thinking he would want to show his work to Steffens, Hadley packed all his manuscripts into a valise which was subsequently stolen at
Gare de Lyon The Gare de Lyon, officially Paris-Gare-de-Lyon, is one of the six large mainline railway stations in Paris, France. It handles about 148.1 million passengers annually according to the estimates of the SNCF in 2018, with SNCF railways and RER ...
train station.Mellow (1992), 208 Although angry and upset, Hemingway went with Hadley to Chamby (
Montreux Montreux (, , ; frp, Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and has a population of approxima ...
) to ski, and apparently did not post a reward for the recovery of the valise.Reynolds (2000), 26 An early story, "
Up in Michigan "Up in Michigan" is a short story by American writer Ernest Hemingway, written in 1921 and revised in 1938. It is collected in ''Three Stories and Ten Poems'' (1923) and ''The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories'' (1938). Publication hi ...
", survived the loss because Gertrude Stein had told him it was unprintable (in part because of a seduction scene), and he had stuffed it in a drawer.Smith (1996), 40 A month later in a letter to Pound, he mentioned that "You, naturally, would say, "Good" etc. But don't say it to me. I ain't reached that mood."Cohen (2012), 35 In his reply, Pound pointed out that Hemingway had only lost "the ''time'' it will ... take you to rewrite the parts you can remember ... If the middle, i.e., ''FORM'', of the story is right then one ought to be able to reassemble it from memory ... If the thing wobbles and won't reform ... then it never ''wd.'' have been ''right''."Smith (1996), 41 Critics are uncertain whether he took Pound's advice and re-created existing stories or whether everything he wrote after the loss of the suitcase was new.


''The Little Review''

In February 1923, Hemingway and Hadley visited Italy; in
Rapallo Rapallo ( , , ) is a municipality in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, located in the Liguria region of northern Italy. As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants. It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and Chiav ...
they met Pound, who almost certainly commissioned the prose pieces for the literary magazine ''
The Little Review ''The Little Review'', an American literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson in Chicago's historic Fine Arts Building, published literary and art work from 1914 to May 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound, Anderson created a m ...
'' during their visit. Still upset at the loss of his work, Hemingway had not written since the previous December, but he slowly wrote six new paragraphs, submitting them for the March deadline.Cohen (2012), 36 Hemingway scholar Milton Cohen says at that point Hemingway knew the pieces for ''The Little Review'' would "govern the remainder of the book that Pound had commissioned."Cohen (2012), 40 The six prose pieces ranged from 75 to 187 words and were about war and bullfighting. The battle scenes came from the experiences of Hemingway's friend Chink Dorman-Smith who was at the Battle of Mons; the matador story originated from another friend, Mike Strater. Hemingway himself witnessed the events which inspired the story about the Greco-Turkish War. The last of the series was taken from news of the execution of six Greek cabinet ministers during the
Trial of the Six The Trial of the Six ( el, Δίκη των Έξι, ''Díki ton Éxi'') or the Execution of the Six was the trial for treason, in late 1922, of the Anti-Venizelist officials held responsible for the Greek military defeat in Asia Minor. The tria ...
.Cohen (2012), 37 The ''Little Reviews "Exiles" edition, scheduled to be published in the spring, was finally released in October 1923, leading with Hemingway's work. It featured pieces from modernists such as Gertrude Stein,
George Antheil George Johann Carl Antheil (; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the modern sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of t ...
,
E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...
and
Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
. Hemingway's vignettes were titled "In Our Time", suggesting a cohesive set.Cohen (2003), 106


''in our time''

In June 1923, Hemingway took Hadley, with
Robert McAlmon Robert Menzies McAlmon (also used Robert M. McAlmon, as his signature name, March 9, 1895 – February 2, 1956) was an American writer, poet, and publisher. In the 1920s, he founded in Paris the publishing house, Contact Editions, where he publ ...
and Bird, to Spain where he found a new passion with his first visits to the bullfights.Cohen (2012), 41–42 During the summer he wrote five new vignettes (chapters 12–16), all about bullfighting,Cohen (2012), 44 finishing the last two on his return to Paris in August.Cohen (2012), 45 That summer he also honed new narrative techniques in chapters 7–11. In August he reported to Pound that he was about to begin the last two pieces (chapters 17 and 18), implemented revisions that Pound suggested, and sent the manuscript to Bill Bird. Then he left Paris with Hadley (who was pregnant with their first child) for Toronto,Cohen (2012), 48 where he was living when Bird finished producing the book. The pieces he submitted to Bird were at first untitled (Pound called the submission ''Blank'');Mellow (1992), 188 later the title ''in our time'' – from the ''
Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...
'' – was chosen.Mellow (1992), 239 Bird printed the volume on a hand-press with handmade paper, telling Hemingway, "I'm going to pull something really fancy with your book". The book contained eighteen vignettesReynolds (1995), 40 and only thirty-one pages; each one was laid out with plenty of white space, highlighting the brevity of the prose. According to Cohen, the "visual suddenness intensifies its narrative abruptness, heightens the shock of violence, and the chillingly matter-of-fact tone".Cohen (2012), 59 The book's presentation was intended as unconventional, with its use of lowercase throughout and lack of quotation marks. When challenged by American editors over the use of lowercase in the titles, Hemingway admitted that it could be seen as "silly and affected".Waldhorn (2002), 259 Bird designed the distinctive
dust jacket The dust jacket (sometimes book jacket, dust wrapper or dust cover) of a book is the detachable outer cover, usually made of paper and printed with text and illustrations. This outer cover has folded flaps that hold it to the front and back boo ...
 – a collage of newspaper articles in four languagesTetlow (1992), 46 – to highlight that the vignettes carried a sense of journalism or news.Meyers (1985), 141 The frontispiece is a
woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...
portrait of the author, which during the printing process bled through to the next page, ruining more than half the print run so that only 170 of the 300 copies printed were deemed suitable to sell. The rest were sent to reviewers and friends.Baker (1972), 17 A comic book adaptation of “in our time” was released by Fantagraphics in 2022.


''In Our Time''

A year later Hemingway was back in Paris, where he wrote some of his best short stories and told Scott Fitzgerald that, of the new material, "
Indian Camp "Indian Camp" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. The story was first published in 1924 in Ford Madox Ford's literary magazine ''Transatlantic Review'' in Paris and republished by Boni & Liveright in Hemingway's first American volume of ...
" and "
Big Two-Hearted River "Big Two-Hearted River" is a two-part short story written by American author Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of ''In Our Time'', the first American volume of Hemingway's short stories. It features a single prota ...
" were superior.Smith (1983), 271–272 Over the next six months, one of his most productive periods according to critic Jackson Benson, he wrote eight short stories. The stories were combined with the earlier vignettes and sent to
Boni & Liveright Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American trade book publisher established in 1917 in New York City by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright. Over the next sixteen years the firm, which changed its name to Horace Live ...
in New York toward the end of the year.Mellow (1992), 188 In March he was in
Schruns Schruns is a municipality in the Montafon valley (altitude 690 meters), in the Bludenz district of the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg. To the west is the famous Zimba mountain, often called the "Vorarlberger Matterhorn," which is ver ...
, Austria when the acceptance cable and $100 advance arrived, with a request to option his next two books. Directly afterward, he received a letter from
Max Perkins William Maxwell Evarts "Max" Perkins (September 20, 1884 – June 17, 1947) was an American book editor, best remembered for discovering authors Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and Thomas Wolfe. Early life and e ...
of
Scribner's Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner's or Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing American authors including Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Marjorie Kinnan Rawli ...
, who had read Bird's Paris edition and thought it lacked commercial appeal, and queried whether the young writer had stories to offer to bolster the collection. In his reply, Hemingway explained that he had already entered a contract with Boni & Liveright.Mellow (1992), 282–283 When he received the contract for the book, Boni & Liveright requested that "Up in Michigan" be dropped for fear it might be censored; in response Hemingway wrote "
The Battler "The Battler" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of '' In Our Time'', by Boni & Liveright Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American trade book publisher estab ...
" to replace the earlier story.Reynolds (1995), 43 The 1925 New York edition contained the fourteen short stories with the vignettes interwoven as "interchapters".Smith (1996), 40–42 Boni & Liveright published the book on October 5, 1925,Mellow (1992), 314 with a print-run of 1335 copies, costing $2 each, which saw four reprints.Hagemann (1983), 39 The firm designed a "modish" dust jacket, similar to the Paris edition, and elicited endorsements from Ford Madox Ford,
Gilbert Seldes Gilbert Vivian Seldes (; January 3, 1893 – September 29, 1970) was an American writer and cultural critic. Seldes served as the editor and drama critic of the seminal modernist magazine ''The Dial'' and hosted the NBC television program '' The ...
, John Dos Passos, and
Donald Ogden Stewart Donald Ogden Stewart (November 30, 1894 – August 2, 1980) was an American writer and screenwriter best known for his sophisticated golden age comedies and melodramas such as '' The Philadelphia Story'' (based on the play by Philip Barry), '' T ...
. Boni & Liveright claimed American copyright for the works published in France. Hemingway was disappointed with the publisher's marketing efforts,Mellow (1992), 317–318 and that December he complained to Boni & Liveright about their handling of the book, citing a lack of advertising, claiming they could have had "20,000 in sales" and that he should have requested a $1000 advance.Mellow (1992), 320 He later broke his contract with the firm, signing with Max Perkins at Scribner's the following year. Scribner's bought the rights from Boni & Liveright, releasing the second American edition on October 24, 1930, which saw one reprint. The Scribner's edition included an introduction by
Edmund Wilson Edmund Wilson Jr. (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer and literary critic who explored Freudian and Marxist themes. He influenced many American authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose unfinished work he edited for publi ...
and Hemingway's "Introduction by the Author", which was renamed as "
On the Quai at Smyrna "On the Quai at Smyrna" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, first published in the 1930 Scribner's edition of the '' In Our Time'' collection of short stories, then titled "Introduction by the author".Oliver (1999), 251 Accompanying it w ...
" in the 1938 publication of ''
The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories ''The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories'' is an anthology of writings by Ernest Hemingway published by Scribner's on October 14, 1938. It contains Hemingway's only full-length play, ''The Fifth Column'', and 49 short stories. Many of ...
''. When ''In Our Time'' was re-issued in 1955, "On the Quai at Smyrna" replaced "Indian Camp" as the first story.Reynolds (1995), 49


Contents


1924 edition

The 1924 ''in our time'' collection consists of eighteen vignettes.Oliver (1999), 168–169 Five center on World War I (Chapters 1, 4, 5, 7, 8), and six on bullfighting (Chapters 2 and 12 to 16); the others center around news stories. Chapter 10 is the longest; it details a soldier's affair with a
Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...
nurse, and is based on Hemingway's relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky. The piece about a robbery and murder in Kansas City originated in a newspaper story Hemingway covered as a cub reporter at ''
The Kansas City Star ''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and a ...
''; it is followed by the story of the public hanging of the Chicago mobster Sam Cardinelli. The last, ''"L'Envoi"'', is about the
King of Greece The Kingdom of Greece was ruled by the House of Wittelsbach between 1832 and 1862 and by the House of Glücksburg from 1863 to 1924, temporarily abolished during the Second Hellenic Republic, and from 1935 to 1973, when it was once more abolishe ...
and
Sophia of Prussia Sophia of Prussia (Sophie Dorothea Ulrike Alice, el, Σοφία; 14 June 1870 – 13 January 1932) was Queen consort of the Hellenes from 1913–1917, and also from 1920–1922. A member of the House of Hohenzollern and child of Frederick III, ...
giving an interview in the palace garden during the Revolution.


1925 edition

The 1925 New York edition begins with the short stories "Indian Camp" and "
The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of ''In Our Time'', by Boni & Liveright. The story is the second in the collection to feature Nick Adams, Hemingway’s autobiographi ...
". The two are linked thematically; they are set in
Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...
and introduce Nick Adams. Nick witnesses an emergency caesarean section and a suicide in the first; the tension between his parents in the second. The next story, "
The End of Something “The End of Something” is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of ''In Our Time'', by Boni & Liveright. The story is the third in the collection to feature Nick Adams, Hemingway's autobiographical ...
", is also set in Michigan, and details Nick's break-up with his girlfriend; "
The Three-Day Blow “The Three-Day Blow” is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of ''In Our Time'', by Boni & Liveright.Oliver (1999), 324 The story is the fourth in the collection to feature Nick Adams, Hemingway's ...
" follows, where Nick and a friend get drunk. "
The Battler "The Battler" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 New York edition of '' In Our Time'', by Boni & Liveright Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American trade book publisher estab ...
" is about Nick's chance encounter with a prize-fighter. "
A Very Short Story "A Very Short Story" is a short story written by Ernest Hemingway. It was first published as a vignette, or chapter, in the 1924 Paris edition titled '' In Our Time'', and later rewritten and added to Hemingway's first American short story collec ...
", which was the longest vignette in the previous edition, comes next and is followed by "
Soldier's Home "Soldier's Home" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. It was included in the 1925 ''Contact Collection of Contemporary Writers'' and published by Boni & Liveright in Hemingway's 1925 New York collection short stories, '' In Our Time''.Oliver, (1 ...
", set in Oklahoma, and "
The Revolutionist "The Revolutionist" is an Ernest Hemingway short story published in his first American volume of stories ''In Our Time''. Originally written as a vignette for his earlier Paris edition of the collection, titled ''in our time'', he rewrote and ex ...
", set in Italy. The next three are set in Europe and detail unhappy marriages: " Mr. and Mrs. Elliot", "
Cat in the Rain "Cat in the Rain" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), first published by Richard Hadley of Boni & Liveright in 1925 in the short story collection ''In Our Time''. The story is about an American husband and wife on v ...
" and " Out of Season". They are placed before Nick's reappearance in " Cross Country Snow", which takes place in Switzerland. The penultimate " My Old Man" concerns horse-racing in Italy and Paris, and the volume ends with the two-part Nick Adams story "Big Two-Hearted River", set in Michigan. The vignettes were re-ordered and placed between the short stories as interchapters.Oliver (1999), 52–53


Structure

Whether the collection has a unified structure has been a source of debate among Hemingway critics. According to Reynolds the collection should be "read as a predictable step in any young author's career" and the pieces considered as "discrete units". Yet he admits that Hemingway's remarks, and the complexity of the structure, suggests the stories and vignettes were meant to be an interconnected whole.Reynolds (1995), 36 In a letter to Pound in August 1923, Hemingway told him he had finished the full set of eighteen vignettes, saying of them, "When they are read together, they all hook up ... The bulls start, then reappear, then finish off. The war starts clear and noble just like it did ... gets close and blurred and finished with the feller who goes home and gets clap."Tetlow (1992), 23 He went on to say of "in our time" that "it has form all right". On October 18, 1924, he wrote to Edmund Wilson, "Finished the book of 14 stories with a chapter of 'In Our Time' between each story – that is the way they are meant to go – to give the picture of the whole before examining it in detail". Benson notes that all the fiction Hemingway had produced was included in the collection, that the connection between stories and vignettes is tenuous at best, and that Pound had an influence in editing the final product. Benson calls the work a "prose poem of terror", where looking for connections is meaningless. Conversely, Linda Wagner-Martin suggests the unrelenting tone of horror and somber mood unify the separate pieces.Wagner-Martin (1983), 121 One of its early reviewers,
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
, referred to it as a "
fragmentary novel A fragmentary novel is a novel made of fragments, vignettes, segments, documents or chapters that can be read in isolation and/or as part of the greater whole of the book. These novels typically lack a traditional plot or set of characters and o ...
".Moddelmog (1988), 608 Hemingway scholar Wendolyn Tetlow says that from its inception the collection was written with a rhythmic and lyrical unity reminiscent of Pound's "
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley ''Hugh Selwyn Mauberley'' (1920) is a long poem by Ezra Pound. It has been regarded as a turning point in Pound's career (by F. R. Leavis and others), and its completion was swiftly followed by his departure from England. The name "Selwyn" might ...
" and
T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National B ...
's ''
The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United Kingdom in the Octob ...
''.Tetlow (1992), 14 The carefully crafted sequence continues in the 1925 edition, beginning with the first five Nick Adams stories, which are about violence and doom, empty relationships and characters lacking self-awareness.Tetlow (1992), 48 The first two stories, "Indian Camp" and "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife", can be read as an exercise in counterpoint, where feelings of loss, anger, and evil are ignored and repressed. "The End of Something" and "The Three-Day Blow" also form a pair; in the first Nick breaks up with his girlfriend, in the second he gets drunk and denies the relationship has ended, convincing himself that it will all work out. This state of denial continues in "The Battler", the fifth story; when faced with violence Nick will not recognize that he is in danger.Tetlow (1992), 65 "A Very Short Story", about betrayal, and wounding, ends the sequence according to Tetlow, who suggests these are stories in which Hemingway writes about the "most bitter feelings of loss and disillusionment". The characters face loss with inner strength, stoicism and a sense of acceptance; they build strength in the stories that come after,Tetlow (1992), 68 gaining self-awareness as they accept the futility and pain of life.Tetlow (1992), 70 The collection ends with "Big Two-Hearted River", in which Nick finds tranquility, perhaps even happiness, in solitude. Wagner-Martin notes that "it is this essential tranquility that in retrospect heightens the tension and sorrow of the preceding pieces." Another Hemingway scholar, Jim Berloon, disagrees with Tetlow, writing that its only unity consists of similarities in tone and style and the recurrence of the Nick Adams character. Although the first vignettes share a common thread about the war, each is distinctly framed, weakening any structural unity that might have existed. He blames the war, saying that it was too hard for Hemingway to write about it cohesively, that it was "too large, terrible, and mentally overwhelming to grasp in its entirety".Barloon (2005), 6 Instead, he says, Hemingway wrote fragments, "discrete glimpses into hell ... like the wreckage of battle lit up from a shell burst at night."Barloon (2005), 7 The structure apparent in the 1924 collection of vignettes is lost in the later edition because the short stories seem to bear little if any relationship to the interchapters, shattering the carefully constructed order.Barloon (2005), 9 The sense of discordance is intensified because the action is about unnamed men and soldiers, only referred to with pronouns, and unspecified woundings.Barloon (2005), 8 The characters are transformed through circumstances and settings, where danger exists overtly, on the battlefield, or, in one case, by a chance sexual encounter in a Chicago taxi.Barloon (2005), 9 Critic E. R. Hageman notes the 1924 ''in our time'' vignettes are linked chronologically, spanning ten years from 1914 to 1923, and the choices were deliberate. World War I and the aftermath were "''the'' experience of his generation, the experience that dumped his peers and his elders into graves, shell-holes, hospitals, and onto gallows. These were 'in our time', Hemingway is saying, and he remarks the significant and the insignificant."Hagemann (1983), 52


Themes

The stories contain themes Hemingway was to revisit over the course of his career. He wrote about initiation rites, early love, marriage problems, disappointment in family life and the importance of male comradeship.Mellow (1992), 266–268 The collection conjures a world of violence and war, suffering, executions; it is a world stripped of romance, where even "the hero of the bullfight chapter pukes". Hemingway's early-20th century is a time "out of season", where war, death, and tangled, unfulfilling relationships reign. Alienation in the modern world is particularly evident in "Out of Season", which bears similarities to Eliot's ''The Waste Land''.Bickford (1992), 75–76 Eliot's ''Waste Land'' motif exists throughout much of Hemingway's early fiction, but is most notable in this collection, ''
The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the b ...
'' (1926), and '' A Farewell to Arms'' (1929). He borrowed Eliot's device of using imagery to evoke feeling.Tetlow (1992), 16 Benson attributes similarities between Hemingway and Eliot to Pound, who edited both.Benson (1983), 106 Motifs and themes reappear, the most obvious being the juxtaposition of life and death. There are some recurring images such as water and darkness – places of safety. Benson notes how, after reading the first few vignettes and stories, readers "realize we are in hell." Hemingway conjures a world where "the weak are pitilessly exploited by the strong, and ... all functions of life ... promise only pain." Hemingway's semi-autobiographical character Nick Adams is "vital to Hemingway's career", writes Mellow, and generally his character reflects Hemingway's experiences.Moddelmog (1988), 593 Nick, who features in eight of the stories, is an alter ego, a means for Hemingway to express his own experiences, from the first story '"Indian Camp" which features Nick as a child. According to critic Howard Hannum, the trauma of birth and suicide Hemingway paints in "Indian Camp" rendered a leitmotif that gave Hemingway a unified framework for the Nick Adams stories. It is followed by "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife", which Mellows says is written with a sense of "hostility and resignation", and sheds a rare light on Hemingway's childhood. In the story, 12-year-old Nick hides from his angry and violent father; the mother, a
Christian Scientist Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally known ...
, is distanced, withdrawn in her bedroom, reading '' Science and Health''.Mellow (1992), 269 "Big Two-Hearted River", the concluding and climactic piece, details Nick's return from war. In it Nick knows he has left his needs behind; Debra Moddelmog highlights how all of the Nick storylines, and most of the others in the collection, are about a "flight from pain".Moddelmog (1988), 595–598 She believes that Gertrude Stein's definition of the
Lost Generation The Lost Generation was the social generational cohort in the Western world that was in early adulthood during World War I. "Lost" in this context refers to the "disoriented, wandering, directionless" spirit of many of the war's survivors in th ...
applies to ''In Our Time'' as much, if not more so, as to ''The Sun Also Rises''; that "Nick seems to believe that the things most worth having and caring about – life, love, ideals, companions, peace, freedom – will be lost sooner or later, and he is not sure how to cope with this assurance, except through irony, bitterness, and, sometimes, wishful thinking."Moddelmog (1988), 599 In the last story he learns to come to terms with the loss of his friends, and acknowledges "all the loss he has experienced in the last few years and, equally important, the loss he has come to expect."Moddelmog (1988), 600


Style

Biographer Mellow believes that ''In Our Time'' is Hemingway's most experimental book, particularly with its unusual narrative form.Mellow (1992), 266 The vignettes have no traditional sense of narrative; they begin in the middle.Cohen (2012), 37 Shifting points-of-view and narrative perspectives disguise autobiographical details. Pound taught Hemingway to write sparingly.Tetlow (1992), 20 Pound wrote to him that "anything put on top of the subject is BAD ... The subject is always interesting enough without blankets." Hemingway would write in ''
A Moveable Feast ''A Moveable Feast'' is a 1964 memoir ''belles-lettres'' by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling expat journalist and writer in Paris during the 1920s. It was published posthumously. The book details Hemingway's fir ...
'' (published posthumously in 1964), "If I started to write elaborately, like someone presenting or introducing something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written." ''In Our Time'' was written during the author's experimentation phase, his first attempts towards a minimalist style.Smith (1996), 45 The prose in "Indian Camp" and "Big Two-Hearted River" is sharper and more abstract than in other stories, and by employing simple sentences and diction – techniques he learned writing for newspapers – the prose is timeless with an almost mythic quality, explains Benson.Benson (1975), 285–287 The tightly compressed sentence structure emulates and reflects Pound's
imagist Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is someti ...
style, bringing to prose narrative the stripped-down style Pound famously established in 1913 with poems such as " In a Station of the Metro". Thomas Strychacz compares Hemingway's prose to Pound's poetry, writing, "Hemingway's terse, tight-lipped, tightly wound fragments are equally extraordinary in their dramatic intensity."Strychacz (1996), 58 The taut style is apparent from the first vignette, in which a brigade of drunken soldiers march to
Champagne Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...
. With supreme understatement he alludes to the
Second Battle of Champagne The Second Battle of Champagne ( or Autumn Battle) in World War I was a French offensive against the German army at Champagne that coincided with an Anglo-French assault at north-east Artois and ended with French retreat. Battle On 25 Septemb ...
, an offensive lasting from September to December 25, 1915, in which 120,000 French troops were killed in the first three weeks:Tetlow (1992), 18 The vignette opening with the words "We were in a garden at Mons" is equally understated; the narrator writes, "The first German I saw climbed up over the garden wall. We waited till he got one leg over then potted him. He ... looked awfully surprised". The description repeats images, is dispassionate and warps logic, according to Strychacz.Strychacz (1996), 59 These set the model for
flash fiction Flash fiction is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as "twitterature"); ...
 – fiction that is condensed without unnecessary descriptive detail.Hlinak (2010), 18 In ''A Moveable Feast'' Hemingway wrote that "Out of Season", written in 1924, was the first story where he applied the theory of omission, known as his
Iceberg Theory The iceberg theory or theory of omission is a writing technique coined by American writer Ernest Hemingway. As a young journalist, Hemingway had to focus his newspaper reports on immediate events, with very little context or interpretation. When h ...
. He explained that the stories in which he left out the most important parts, such as not writing about the war in "Big Two-Hearted River", are the best of his early fiction. As
Carlos Baker Carlos Baker (May 5, 1909, Biddeford, Maine – April 18, 1987, Princeton, New Jersey) was an American writer, biographer and former Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton University. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College and ...
describes the technique, the hard facts float above water while the supporting structure, including the symbolism, operates out of sight.Baker (1972), 117 Hemingway wrote in the preface to ''
Death in the Afternoon ''Death in the Afternoon'' is a non-fiction book written by Ernest Hemingway about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting, published in 1932. The book provides a look at the history and the Spanish traditions of bullfighting. It al ...
'', a writer may choose what to include and what to omit from a story.


Reception and legacy

Hemingway's writing style attracted attention after the release of the Parisian edition of ''in our time'' in 1924. Edmund Wilson described the writing as "of the first distinction", writing that the bullfight scenes were like
Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...
paintings, that the author "had almost invented a form of his own", and it had "more artistic dignity than any written by an American about the period of the war."Reynolds (1989), 243 The 1925 edition of ''In Our Time'' is considered one of Hemingway's masterpieces. Reviewers and critics noticed, and the collection received positive reviews on its publication. ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' described the language as "fibrous and athletic, colloquial and fresh, hard and clean, his very prose seems to have an organic being of its own". A reviewer for ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' wrote, "Ernest Hemingway is somebody; a new honest un-'literary' transcriber of life – a Writer." Reviewing if for '' The Bookman'', F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Hemingway was an "augury" of the age and that the Nick Adams stories were "temperamentally new" in American fiction.Mellow (1992), 316 His parents, however, described the book as "filth", disturbed by the passage in "A Very Short Story" which tells of a soldier contracting
gonorrhea Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium ''Neisseria gonorrhoeae''. Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with u ...
after a sexual encounter with a sales girl in a taxicab. Bird sent five copies to them which were promptly returned, eliciting a letter from Hemingway, who complained, "I wonder what was the matter, whether the pictures were too accurate and the attitude toward life not sufficiently distorted to please who ever bought the book or what?"Mellow (1992), 255 ''In Our Time'' was ignored and forgotten by literary critics for decades. Benson attributes the neglect to various factors. ''
The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the b ...
'', published the next year, is considered the more important book followed fairly rapidly by the popular '' A Farewell to Arms'' two years after in 1928; critics' general assumption seemed to be that Hemingway's talent lay in writing prose rather than "sophisticated, complex design"; and ''In Our Time'' stories were combined with subsequent collections in the publication of ''
The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories ''The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories'' is an anthology of writings by Ernest Hemingway published by Scribner's on October 14, 1938. It contains Hemingway's only full-length play, ''The Fifth Column'', and 49 short stories. Many of ...
'' in 1938, drawing the critics' attention away from the book as an entity, toward the individual stories. In 1962, when Scribner's released the paperback edition of ''In Our Time'', it began to be taught in American universities, and by the end of the decade, the first critical study of the collection appeared. Benson describes the collection as the author's first "major achievement";Benson (1983), 103–104 Wagner-Martin as "his most striking work, both in terms of personal involvement and technical innovation."Wagner-Martin (1983), 120


References


Sources

* Baker, Carlos. (1972). ''Hemingway: The Writer as Artist''. (4th edition). Princeton: Princeton University Press. * Barloon, Jim. (2005). "Very Short Stories: The Miniaturization of War in Hemingway's 'In Our Time'". ''The Hemingway Review''. Vol. 24, No. 2. * Benson, Jackson. (1983). "Patterns of Connections and their development in Hemingway's ''In Our Time''". In Reynolds, Michael. (ed). ''Critical essays on Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time''. Boston: G. K. Hall. * Benson, Jackson (1975). "Ernest Hemingway as Short Story Writer". In Benson, Jackson. (ed). ''The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: Critical Essays''. Durham NC: Duke University Press. * Bickford, Sylvester. (1992). "Hemingway's Italian ''Waste Land'': The Complex Unity of 'Out of Season'". In Beegel, Susan F. (ed). ''Hemingway's Neglected Short Fiction''. Tuscaloosa: Alabama University Press. * Cohen, Milton. (2012). ''Hemingway's Laboratory: The Paris 'In our Time. Tuscaloosa: Alabama University Press. * Cohen, Milton. (2003). "Who Commissioned ''The Little Reviews 'In Our Time'?". ''The Hemingway Review''. Vol. 23, No. 1. * Hagemann, E. R. (1983). "'Only Let the Story End as Soon as Possible': Time-and-History in Ernest Hemingway's ''In Our Time''". In Reynolds, Michael. (ed) ''Critical essays on Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time''. Boston: G. K. Hall. * Hannum, Howard. (2001). "'Scared sick looking at it': A Reading of Nick Adams in the Published Stories". ''Twentieth Century Literature''. Vol. 47, No. 1. * Hemingway, Ernest. (1925/1930) ''In Our Time''. (1996 ed). New York: Scribner. * Hemingway, Ernest. (1981). ''Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917–1961''. In Baker, Carlos. (ed). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. * Hlinak, Matt. (2010). "Hemingway's Very Short Experiment: From 'A Very Short Story' to a ''A Farewell to Arms''". ''The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association''. Vol. 43, No. 1. * Leff, Leonard (1999). ''Hemingway and His Conspirators: Hollywood, Scribner's and the making of American Celebrity Culture''. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. * Mellow, James. (1992) ''Hemingway: A Life Without Consequences''. New York: Houghton Mifflin. * Meyers, Jeffrey. (1985). ''Hemingway: A Biography''. New York: Macmillan. * Moddelmog, Debra. (1988). "The Unifying Consciousness of a Divided Conscience: Nick Adams as Author of 'In Our Time'". ''American Literature''. Vol. 60, No. 4. * Oliver, Charles. (1999). ''Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work''. New York: Checkmark Publishing. . * Reynolds, Michael (2000). "Ernest Hemingway, 1899–1961: A Brief Biography". In Wagner-Martin, Linda. (ed). ''A Historical Guide to Ernest Hemingway''. New York: Oxford University Press. * Reynolds, Michael. (1995). ''Hemingway's 'In Our Time': The biography of a Book''. In Kennedy, Gerald J. (ed). ''Modern American Short Story Sequences''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Reynolds, Michael. (1989). ''Hemingway: The Paris Years''. New York: Norton. * Smith, Paul. (1996). "1924: Hemingway's Luggage and the Miraculous Year". In Donaldson, Scott (ed). ''The Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway''. New York: Cambridge University Press. * Smith, Paul. (1983). "Hemingway's Early Manuscripts: The Theory and Practice of Omission". ''Journal of Modern Literature''. Vol. 10, No. 2. * Strychacz, Thomas. (1996). 'In Our Time'', Out of Season". In Donaldson, Scott (ed). ''The Cambridge Companion to Ernest Hemingway''. New York: Cambridge University Press. * Tetlow, Wendolyn E. (1992). ''Hemingway's "In Our Time": Lyrical Dimensions''. Cranbury NJ: Associated University Presses. * Wagner-Martin, Linda. (2002). "Introduction". In Wagner-Martin, Linda (ed). ''Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises: A Casebook''. New York: Oxford University Press. * Wagner-Martin, Linda. (1983). "Juxtaposition in Hemingway's ''In Our Time''". In Reynolds, Michael. (ed). ''Critical essays on Ernest Hemingway's In Our Time''. Boston: G. K. Hall. * Waldhorn, Arthur. (2002 edition). ''A reader's guide to Ernest Hemingway''. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. * Novak, Jason. (2022 edition). ''In His Time: The Early Stories of Ernest Hemingway''. Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics.


External links

* * *
Ernest Hemingway Collection, JFK Library
{{Authority control 1925 short story collections Short story collections by Ernest Hemingway Boni & Liveright books