A Farewell to Arms

A novel of the First World War set largely in Italy. Frederic Henry, a young American serving as an ambulance driver with the Italian army, meets Catherine Barkley, an English nurse. Their love grows against a background of retreat, rain, hospitals and mounting disillusion with the war. Hemingway draws on his own experience in Italy to show how ordinary people are carried along by events beyond their control. The book is admired for its clear, understated style and for its sober view of love and war.