85 years ago today, Ernest Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls was first published. A story about a young American volunteer who joined the government of Spain as a guerrilla fighter during the Spanish Civil War, a conflict that was widely viewed as a dress rehearsal for the Second World War because the Italian Fascists and German Nazis were supporting an overthrow. READ more about this seminal work… (1940)

Based on Hemingway’s own experiences during that war, where he had been a journalist, it was regarded as one of Hemingway’s best works. The book sold half a million copies and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

As is so often the case with great novels, and works of art besides, For Whom the Bell Tolls received consistent criticism for various reasons, among which w

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