2007 Audie Award Finalist for Classics
“The ideal companion for troubled times: equal parts Continental escape and serious grappling with the question of what it means to be, and feel, lost.” — The Wall Street Journal
One of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read
The Sun Also Rises is a classic example of Hemingway’s spare but powerful writing style. It celebrates the art and craft of Hemingway’s quintessential story of the Lost Generation—presented by the Hemingway family with illuminating supplementary material from the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library.
A poignant look at the disillusionment and angst of the post-World War I generation, the novel introduces two of Hemingway’s most unforgettable characters: Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley. The story follows the flamboyant Brett and the hapless Jake as they journey from the wild nightlife of 1920s Paris to the brutal bullfighting rings of Spain with a motley group of expatriates. It is an age of moral bankruptcy, spiritual dissolution, unrealized love, and vanishing illusions. First published in 1926, The Sun Also Rises is “an absorbing, beautifully and tenderly absurd, heartbreaking narrative...a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard, athletic prose” (The New York Times).
The Hemingway Library Edition commemorates Hemingway’s classic novel with a personal foreword by Patrick Hemingway, the author’s sole surviving son, and an introduction by Sean Hemingway, grandson of the author. Hemingway considered the extensive rewriting that he did to shape his first novel the most difficult job of his life. Early drafts, deleted passages, and possible titles included in this new edition elucidate how the author achieved his first great literary masterpiece.
Download and start listening now!
"Having finished the book and read several critiques, I get the impression that Ernest Hemingway wrote a Roman a Clef about him and his friends and lots of literary theorists applied their own views and concerns to the story."
— Richard (4 out of 5 stars)
“An absorbing, beautifully and tenderly absurd, heart-breaking narrative…It is a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard athletic prose…magnificent.”
— New York Times“Some of the finest and most restrained writing that this generation has produced.”
— New York World“The Sun Also Rises is Hemingway’s masterpiece—one of them, anyway—and no matter how many times you’ve read it or how you feel about the manners and morals of the characters, you won’t be able to resist its spell.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review" Good book. But I definitely enjoyed more The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, a book in which she tells the story of Hemingway and his first wife Hadley Richardson (as well as many of the incidents that are somehow told in The Sun Also Rises). It is interesting to note that while Hemingway's first marriage was falling apart, he wrote The Sun Also Rises. "
— Becky, 2/17/2014" If only I could sit down with HIM for one hour...he is who I would invite to dinner. This exchange reminds me of his short story "A Clean Well Lighted Place"... "
— Stephanie, 2/16/2014" They are young, lost, rotten, privileged - even the Jew. Yet somehow it works. A farewell to charms, to the irrepetitive moment. "
— Fania, 2/14/2014" A group of flaccid nobodies not doing much of anything. "
— Bruce, 2/4/2014" THIS BOOK WAS TERRIBLE! I DO NOT RECCOMEND READING THIS! "
— Savannah, 1/25/2014" I read this in Pamplona, Spain, when I was 19 and full of swagger and bravado. Then I ran with the bulls and drank bag wine. What can I say, I loved it. "
— William, 1/20/2014" One of my favorites of all the books I had to read in college. "
— Ann, 12/25/2013" Hemingway is brilliant and he manipulated the characters emotions effectively as to manipulate my own, but damnit most of that emotion was depression and it made me need a break from Hemingway for a little while. "
— Nathan, 11/19/2013" I was bored to death, if I didn't have to read it for book club, I would not have finished. How can a short book seem endless!!!!! "
— Ann, 11/16/2013" I may have only read 145 pages but that was enough. Definitely not a Hemingway fan. "
— Kari, 8/9/2013" Need to dust this one off. It's been a while. Great book. "
— Jerry, 8/9/2013" This book was a tad bit slow in the beginning but by the time I got about halfway the plot really picked up and I loved it. "
— Sara, 7/1/2013" Somewhat melancholic... as is numerous other writings of his. "
— John, 1/27/2013" Very complex relationships with very subtle dialogue. "
— Darcy, 12/30/2012" Man, they sure can put down a lot of alcohol. "
— Danny, 11/9/2012" Gli spagnoli, si diceva, non sono capaci di pedalare. "
— Davide, 11/7/2012" There is little I can say about Ernest Hemingway. He is truly one of my favorite authors. This book takes simple ideas and communicates them in a way that make you think. Loved it. "
— Carol, 9/29/2012" Dismal - had a really hard time reading this one. It's a classic, I know, but not sure why. I found the dialogue painful. Sorry Hemingway fans. "
— Jo, 6/25/2012" One of the best endings! "
— Randy, 3/11/2012" Do you love or hate these characters? It will be an interesting book club discussion. "
— Danielle, 10/18/2011" Good read, Classic Hemingway. Lost generation after WWI. Good if you have lived in Spain. "
— Jim, 7/15/2011" it is fair to say that I am in love with Ernest Hemingway! I did not want this to end. There certainly wasn't any plot that was resolved; it could have gone on forever. "
— melita, 5/24/2011" One of my greatest ten of all time. "
— Rick, 5/20/2011" Vauge, purposeless. Like the "lost generation" Hemingway writes about, I felt he himself was lost when writing this book. "
— Amy, 5/19/2011" I love this book. I'm sad it's over. It feels like the Monday after coming home from vacation. "
— Dave, 5/16/2011" What a pleasure to read a book such as this with clean declarative paragraphs. "
— Susan, 5/12/2011" can't remember, i know i liked it, but I think I was too young to understand it. Want to re-read "
— Jan, 5/7/2011" I don't know if it's me or the time that the book was written, but it took me quite a while to read this book. Nothing ever really happened. I kept waiting for the characters to truly develop and to get attached to at least one of them, but I never did. "
— Christina, 5/3/2011" How had I never read this book until now? So good. Might pick up another Hemmingway before I head to Spain this summer. "
— Carolinetcasey, 5/1/2011" I liked this around the same level as A Farewell to Arms, but I just wasn't able to connect to it as much. I still envy Hemingway in his ability to say things so plainly, yet the grand symbolism he draws between Brett and Jake and the bulls is so utterly eloquent. "
— Nicole, 4/30/2011Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), born in Oak Park, Illinois, started his career as a writer in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen. After the United States entered the First World War, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. After his return to the United States, he became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers. During the twenties, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises. He also wrote Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an old fisherman’s journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat. He also wrote short stories that are collected in Men Without Women and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories. Hemingway died in Idaho in 1961.
William Hurt (1950-2022) was an actor of stage and film and an Earphones Award-winning narrator. His many films include A History of Violence, The Village, Body Heat, The Big Chill, Sunshine, Smoke Eyewitness, Broadcast News, and Children of a Lesser God, as well as his Academy Award-winning role in Kiss of the Spiderwoman. His stage credits include Henry V, Hamlet, Richard II, HurlyBurly, and My Life.