The Sun Also Rises: Deluxe Illustrated Edition - by Ernest Hemingway (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

New illustrations by Tim Foley and a new foreword by author Robert Wheeler catapult this timeless classic by Ernest Hemingway into the twenty-first century with vigor.

For nearly a century, The Sun Also Rises has endured as one of Hemingway's masterworks, and is widely regarded as a prime example of the great American writer's pioneering style and form. His first major novel explores powerful themes like masculinity and male insecurity, sex and love, and the effects of a brutal war on an aimless generation. This roman à clef is based on the real experiences and relationships Hemingway had in the early 1920s.

Set predominantly in France and Spain, the novel follows a group of disillusioned aimless expats tooling around post-war Europe, living hard, drinking heavily, and having complicated sordid love affairs. The novel is told from the perspective of Jake Barnes, a World War I vet turned journalist living in Paris, who is still in love with his former flame, the eccentric and charismatic Lady Brett Ashley. Meanwhile, Jake's friend, author Robert Cohn, becomes tired of his oppressive marriage and sets off to seek out adventure, becoming enamored with Brett himself.

They all eventually drift from the glitz and glamour of 1920s Paris to Pamplona, Spain, where they revel in the rawness of bullfights and alcohol-fueled parties, eventually devolving into jealousy and violent drama. This leads to Jake coming to a stark realization--that he can never be with the woman he truly loves.

Review Quotes

"[Hemingway] writes as if he had never read anybody's writing, as if he had fashioned the art of writing himself." --The Atlantic

"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

"Magnificent. . . . An absorbing, beautifully and tenderly absurd, heart-breaking narrative . . . It is a truly gripping story, told in lean, hard athletic prose." --The New York Times

About the Author

Ernest Hemingway is recognized as one of the iconic and influential writers of the twentieth century. He started out working for the Kansas City Star and later the Toronto Star. He eventually traveled to Europe where he became an ambulance driver for the Italian army in WWI. Some of Hemingway's most popular novels include A Farewell to Arms (1929) and The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

Tim Foley is an artist and illustrator born in Flint, Michigan, in 1962. Over the past quarter century, his clients have included national and international magazines, book publishers, and advertising agencies such as the Wall Street Journal, Cricket Magazine, New York Newsday, LA Weekly, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. He currently lives and works in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Robert Wheeler has been a Hemingway enthusiast since reading his first Hemingway novel in 1986. For the past ten years, he has been a professor at Southern New Hampshire University where he teaches courses in writing and on Hemingway. He was the recipient of the coveted Excellence in Teaching Award for 2006. He is the author of Hemingway's Paris and Hemingway's Havana.