The best American novel to emerge from World War I, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse.

"A Farewell to Arms" was Ernest Hemingway’s first best-seller and the acclaim garnered by this book put his name on the 20th century literary map. The novel is based on Hemingway’s own experiences serving as an ambulance driver during the Italian campaign in World War I and has often been cited as one of the best war novels ever written.

Long considered one of the best American novels of our time, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable tale of an American ambulance driver and his passionate affair with a beautiful English nurse. Set against the backdrop of World War I, this gripping, semi-autobiographical work captures the harsh realities of war as only Hemingway can. A story of love and pain, loyalty and desertion, A Farewell to Arms paints an intimate portrait of the pain and intensity of a love overshadowed by the inexorable creep of global war.

This semiautobiographical tale features an American ambulance driver, Lieutenant Frederic Henry, stationed on the Italian front, who falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a beautiful English nurse. Set against the horrors of war on the battlefield, with tired, demoralized men facing the German attack on Caporetto, Hemingway unforgettably captures their despair as well as the pain of lovers caught in the harsh realities of war, which threaten to pull them apart.

A Farewell to Arms is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, set during the Italian campaign of World War I. First published in 1929, it is a first-person account of an American, Frederic Henry, serving as a lieutenant (Italian: tenente) in the ambulance corps of the Italian Army. The novel describes a love between the American expatriate and an English nurse, Catherine Barkley.