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    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    Ebook184 pages3 hours

    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition

    By Ernest Hemingway

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    • Writing

    • Friendship

    • Literature

    • Fishing

    • Man Vs. Nature

    • Mentor

    • Big Fish

    • Lost Generation

    • Great White Hunter

    • Power of Friendship

    • Mentorship

    • Journey

    • Determinator

    • Struggle for Survival

    • Struggling Artist

    • Struggle

    • Perseverance

    • Fishing & the Sea

    • Cuban Waters

    • Marlin Fishing

    About this ebook

    Ernest Hemingway’s most beloved and popular novel ever, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, now featuring a previously unpublished short story and additional supplementary material—plus a personal foreword by the author’s only living son, Patrick Hemingway, and an introduction by the author’s grandson Seán Hemingway.

    The last of his novels Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the most enduring works of American fiction. The story of a down-on-his-luck Cuban fisherman and his supreme ordeal—a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream—has been cherished by generations of readers.

    Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of adversity and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent 20th-century classic. First published in 1952, this hugely popular tale confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateJul 21, 2020
    ISBN9781476787862
    The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition
    Author

    Ernest Hemingway

    Ernest Hemingway (Oak Park, Illinois, 1899) forma parte ya de la mitología de este siglo, gracias no solo a su obra literaria, sino también a la leyenda que se formó en torno a su azarosa vida y a su trágica muerte. Hombre aventurero y amante del riesgo, a los diecinueve años, durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, se enroló en la Cruz Roja. Participó asimismo en la Guerra Civil española y en otros conflictos bélicos en calidad de corresponsal. Estas experiencias, así como sus viajes por África, se reflejan en varias de sus obras. En la década de 1920 se instaló en París, donde conoció los ambientes literarios de vanguardia. Más tarde vivió en lugares retirados de Cuba y Estados Unidos, donde, además de escribir, pudo dedicarse a una de sus grandes aficiones: la pesca, un tema recurrente en su producción literaria. En 1954 obtuvo el Premio Nobel de Literatura. Siete años después, sumido en unaprofunda depresión, se quitó la vida. Lumen ha publicado sus novelas Adiós a las armas; Por quién doblan las campanas; Verdes colinas de África; El viejo y el mar, por la que recibió el Premio Pulitzer en 1953; el libro de memorias París era una fiesta; sus Cuentos, recopilados por el propio autor, y su primer libro de relatos, En nuestro tiempo.

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    Reviews for The Old Man and the Sea

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    8,599 ratings149 reviews

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    • 5/5

      Aug 4, 2023

      A compelling story of one man’s struggle against the forces of nature as he copes with the frailty of his aging body. He wants to catch this great fish, and he battles with it for three days before it is spent and ready to die. After he kills it he finds the fish, a marlin, is too large to fit in his boat, so he lashes the fish carcass to the side of the boat and begins the journey home, hoping the fish will bring a good price at the market once it is butchered. On the way he must battle hungry sharks, his own hunger, and thirst. This is a poignant story of determination and the human will to dominate, despite the limitations of age and loneliness.
    • 5/5

      Jul 26, 2022

      I thought of my childhood best friends, Paul and Randy, while reading this book--the importance of the hunt with the respect of the hunted. I loved the 'don't give up spirit' portrayed. The respect the boy had for the old man. And that everyone knew what the old man had endured and accomplished.
    • 4/5

      Jul 26, 2022

      I didn't really expect to enjoy this because of the subject matter, despite my adoration of Hemingway. In my head I was linking it to Moby Dick and I knew I didn't want to go there. So yeah, I was wrong, I liked it just fine. As always with Hem, I really appreciate the dialogue, even the inner dialogue of Santiago speaking to himself at sea. While there is much to read into this should you wish to do so, I chose to mostly pass that by, it is pretty obvious, as in a children's fable, so opted to just enjoy the characters and the writing of the tale. I did really like how respectful and protective the young boy was of Santiago; a man to whom he wasn't even related, but who stood tall as a hero and mentor to him. I look forward to reading this again in the future.
    • 3/5

      Jul 26, 2022

      I read this for a school assignment. I'm not sure if I appreciated it like I was meant to at the time.
    • 5/5

      Jan 14, 2025

      Perhaps my favorite novel. Certainly the one I return to most often.

      "I'll kill him though," he said. "In all his greatness." Although it is unjust, he thought. But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.
    • 4/5

      Aug 9, 2024

      A brief book, even for Hemingway, this is directly a metaphor for the struggle and loneliness of life.
    • 5/5

      Jul 1, 2023

      I remember reading this years ago and knew the ending, knew the tragedy that befalls the old man and his triumph over the great fish. So much so that I dreaded the moment after the swordfish is lashed to the side of the boats and sharks begin to attack the ship. But I forgot uplifting sense one gets from the end of the book, the sense that despite his defeat by the sharks his reunion with the boy is what really matters. I just finished teaching _A Farewell to Arms_ and see that novel as Hemingway's treatise on the uselessness of struggle against the great powerful forces - war, nature, death - but the need to struggle regardless. At least the Old Man Santiago in TOMATS is granted a sort of redemption after losing his struggle with cruel nature.
    • 5/5

      May 2, 2023

      One of my very favourite books. I recommend this to everyone of my friends as one of life's lessons. There is so much to learn from Santiago as he sits and struggles out on the sea. His contemplations and the life he is touching while he takes time to think. My daughter read the book on the plane travelling to my brother's wake having bought it at my suggestion (we bought a copy for each other on the same day as a surprise, now we each have two copies). She arrived at his home, looked at me and said 'you could of told me it was a sad ending'. Two sad events in one day. Both extraordinary men with extraordinary stories to reflect on that day.
    • 4/5

      Apr 29, 2023

      I was strangely invested in this fishing expedition.
    • 5/5

      Jan 22, 2024

      Written in 1952, it is considered one of Ernest Hemingway's "most enduring works". I personally would not say so but then again I have not read much of Hemingway.
      The Old Man is a Cuban fisherman who has had bad luck with fishing. It had been eighty-four days without a fish. He goes into the Gulf Stream alone and he does get a large marlin; the story is a lot about that and the struggle.
      The novella does tell a story of a lonely, determined old man.
      I felt it was worth the read and a possible re-read in the future.
      It is only 127 pages.
    • 4/5

      May 17, 2024

      The 1952 classic novella from EH was smooth and quickly read. Symbolizing so much it was more a powerful story of what man must do during his days on earth. To work and hope knowing that in the end it will not be enough and to keep working anyway because that is all we can do. I needed a clean read and EH always provides this literary sorbet. Read in the Scribner's classic Collier Books edition for the 3rd time. Great cover.
    • 5/5

      Dec 6, 2023

      This story is a gnostic story its about the psychological battle that takes place within all of us, and because its set at sea as was the Gnostic Moby Dick its all about deep human emotions that which we feed, feeds us or feeds on us. For me this was Hemmingway's best book.
    • 4/5

      Aug 2, 2023

      Very good!
    • 5/5

      Apr 21, 2023

      Beautiful! As I got well into the book it was easy to see why this has become a classic. I do think you can read it at several stages in life and it would touch you in different ways. As a person past prime having suffered several severe setbacks in life, I find the story especially poignant.
    • 3/5

      Aug 19, 2022

      Summary: Old guy goes looking for fish after a bit of a long time of not catching any fish. Gets a little bit more and a little bit less than he bargained for.

      Things I liked:

      Nice narrative, you found things out as stuff happened rather than being told how things were.

      Things I thought could be improved:

      Maybe a bit to long fighting the fish . It seemed sometimes like I was reading the same statements more than once. Flip side this might have set my mind up just right for the final events of the story.

      Highlight: Probably the old man taking care of the sharks as they ate the fish . It was exciting and sad and romantic and a good ending to to a good story.
    • 4/5

      Aug 31, 2019

      I love Hemingway's writing style. It is spare but not simplistic. This short story flies by like a thriller, as a fisherman battles futility.
    • 4/5

      Aug 3, 2019

      All is futile.

      But the writing style was refreshing, after Moby Dick.
    • 5/5

      Jan 9, 2019

      It's been a while since I've jumped in that small boat with Santiago. As a teen, there are some things you don't appreciate fully. There are books you read in high school that are begging to be reread, through the lens of one who has had more experiences than that of a teen. The Old Man and the Sea is mostly a snapshot of one event, a fight against a fish, a tale of perseverance, wonder, and fortitude. Hemingway is a master at saying a lot with a little, a particular trait that turns off many critics. But this was Hemingway's last thumbprint on the written world, the last book he ever saw published. I think it is personally a perfect bookend to an illustrious career.
    • 4/5

      Feb 2, 2018

      I will shamefacedly admit that this is the first Ernest Hemingway novel I have ever read. I know. I'm a monster. How dare I call myself a librarian! I'm glad I finally got around to reading this Pulitzer prize winning classic, because I liked it so much more than I anticipated. The title summarizes the book pretty succinctly. It really is about an old man and the sea. A lonely old Cuban fisherman sails out to see and battles against a giant marlin for days. All he has are his wits and perseverance and he's not giving up. Deeper though, this story is so much more. It's about fortitude and determination, about never giving up and being resilient all the way to the end. I never thought I would enjoy a story about fishing, but thankfully it is so much more than that. The old man's struggle is real, it's not easy, he loses many battles, but he never gives up on himself.
    • 5/5

      Feb 2, 2018

      I loved the book and the film with Spencer Tracy when I was a youngster - I'm sure I saw the film first. The story made me so sad when I was young and it still manages to do so now. I've read it several times and I'm sure I will again. A sentimental favorite gets an extra half star from me when it doesn't fail on a re-read. This story grabbed me once again from the start. Hemingway's narrative was among his best and this is a great novella. It was very unique among the books I read long ago. It still is unique. The character of the boy who learned to fish from the old man is my favorite - he is so devoted and loves and cares for the old man deeply.
    • 4/5

      Dec 22, 2017

      Not as boring as I expected.
    • 5/5

      Nov 7, 2017

      This was so good I couldn't get the circulation flowing in my hand for ages and the over-stretching of my back was killing me. By the time I got back to shore - hey, hang on, I was only reading this! For a moment there my imagination was so vividly fired up I was in the story. This now-classic is nothing less than brilliant.
    • 5/5

      Oct 30, 2017

      Third time re-reading it, finding new things as a parent. Excited and also scared to re-read it as an actual old man.
    • 4/5

      Sep 16, 2017

      Hemingway's simple style lovingly treats this story of an old fisherman trying to bring in his catch and makes it quietly powerful. Simply isn't easy, and Hemingway is the master.
    • 5/5

      Aug 6, 2017

      Now that's very interesting. I have a very clear picture in my head of how The Old Man and the Sea ended. It has great detail, and it is wrong in every respect. I remember weeping bitterly in my teens over this story. Today when I finished, I was very satisfied. Surprised, too!

      There are plenty of wonderful reviews for this book, so these are my impressions only. This is, by far, my favorite Hemingway story. Not that I have read them all, but I know this will remain my favorite of his because of where it takes place and the simplicity of the telling matches the simplicity of the life and it is beautiful.
    • 5/5

      Jun 20, 2017

      This short novel describes an incident from the life of an ordinary fisherman extremely well. There comes a time in everyone's life when one gets a chance to achieve all that one desires. It then depends on self, how far is one willing to go and how great a risk one takes. And sometimes, it is the 'big fish' that is driving and controlling us instead of the other way round.

      If you do not take the opportunity, you will never know what Luck has in store for you.
      I'd like to buy some (Luck) if there's any place they sell it,
      Yes, you can buy luck too. At the cost of persistence, which The Old Man rightfully pays.

      A man's most difficult struggles are known only to self.
    • 3/5

      Apr 25, 2017

      A story of perseverance. After 84 days of being unlucky in all his attempts to catch a fish, an old fisherman is taken out to sea by a large marlin.
    • 4/5

      Apr 23, 2017

      This book is far too shallow, but much too deep. I guess a reader has to immerse himself, not just look on the surface of the water, to appreciate it. I like its minimalist approach and simplicity.
    • 3/5

      Mar 27, 2017

      I understand that this short book about an elderly fisherman's hunt for marlin is considered great literature and apparently showcases human triumph (or something of that nature), but I struggled to see what exactly was so spectacular about it. I will admit my appreciation for Hemingway's writing, especially his simple sentences, but inspiring language - but I still cannot quite see why this book is so highly regarded. Clearly I am not a professional critic of literature!
    • 5/5

      Mar 10, 2017

      This story has always inspired me because it is a tale of one man's struggle to survive, about his perseverance in his fight with the big fish. A wonderful metaphor for life.

    Book preview

    The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

    Cover: The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

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    The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, Scribner

    To Charlie Scribner and Max Perkins

    Foreword

    In his treatise On the Nature of Things, the ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius once wrote: Life is one long struggle in the dark. What I think he meant by that is there is so much that we do not know. My own education began in many ways during the summers of my youth in Key West, Bimini, and Cuba, especially at Finca Vigía, with my father, who was a wonderful teacher. Cuba and the Gulf Stream then were like an Eden for me, and returning to boarding school always felt like being sent into exile from paradise. Fishing trips with Papa aboard the Pilar in pursuit of marlin, exploring the sea by snorkeling with some of the first single-lens goggle glasses, and the trove of natural history books in my father’s library awakened me to the world in all of its beauty and complexity. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago knows about life’s struggle—he has fished for eighty-four days without a catch. He is not, however, entirely in the dark. In my view, a great achievement of this novel is how my father, drawing on his own formidable experience and talent, managed to create for us the world of the Gulf Stream so completely. It is a powerful evocation of a precious ecosystem, one sadly undergoing terrible changes today due to human intervention, and one very much worth protecting.

    In a fascinating twist of history, the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger and Ernest Hemingway died in the same year. Over the course of their lives both men made great contributions to their chosen professions, each achieving a Nobel Prize, one in physics, the other in literature. Perhaps the most memorable of the Austrian physicist’s thought experiments was Schrödinger’s cat—a creature both dead and alive at the same time. It was a way for him to explain the duality of conditions that can coexist in quantum physics. Schrödinger imagined a cat in a closed box with a deadly poison—one would not know if the cat was dead or alive and so it would, in a sense, be both. Part of the mythic power of The Old Man and the Sea is something that I would call Hemingway’s cat. A seemingly impossible feat is made possible through my father’s storytelling: an old man alone in a skiff on the sea manages to bring in a fish weighing over a thousand pounds.

    Patrick Hemingway

    Introduction

    The Old Man and the Sea is arguably the greatest fishing story of all time. It ranks, in my opinion, above Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick as the most marvelous piscatorial contribution of American literature. It is a timeless story—mythic, archetypal—but it is also of its time. Like the whaling industry of nineteenth-century America captured so poignantly in Moby-Dick, the practice of Cuban commercial fishermen setting out in small sailing skiffs for large billfish, using only hand tackle, is now largely a thing of the past with the advent of motorboats and modern fishing equipment.¹

    Fishing has been a part of human experience for thousands of years and this story reminds us of its importance.²

    Part of the joy of reading The Old Man and the Sea is the portrayal of the act of fishing itself, as anyone who has held a hand line or a rod with a fish tugging on it will understand. Fishing, for those of us who practice it, is one of life’s great pleasures. I am forever grateful to my father for introducing me at a young age to the wonders of fishing, as his father had done for him. The notion of passing on this knowledge from generation to generation, which is expressed so beautifully in the novella through the friendship of Santiago and the young boy, is an important aspect of the story.

    How did Ernest Hemingway come to write this masterpiece? The Old Man and the Sea had a long period of gestation. In 1936 Hemingway described the essence of the story in an article he wrote for Esquire magazine entitled On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter, included as the first appendix to this book. It was a tale told to him by Carlos Gutiérrez, a Cuban fisherman who taught my grandfather much about big-game fishing (see figs. 1

    –3). Hemingway’s passion for deep-sea fishing began much earlier, though, and it was through his determination to master the sport that he acquired a wealth of detailed knowledge enabling him to write the novella many years later.

    Hemingway first became interested in deep-sea fishing when he lived in Key West in the late 1920s, which is also when he began to visit Cuba. The personal fishing logs he kept for more than ten years are preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. They document everything from the numerous fishing trips and catches he made to the weather conditions.³

    In a log from 1932 there are notes from conversations with Carlos Gutiérrez that record fascinating tips about fishing for marlin, as well as the fish’s behavior and characteristics (see fig. 2

    ). In the spring of 1934, upon returning from the safari that he immortalized in Green Hills of Africa, Hemingway custom-ordered his own deep-sea fishing boat. The Pilar, a forty-two-foot wooden motor cruiser from the Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, was to become his home on the sea (see figs. 3

    –5). By the following year my grandfather had caught more than one hundred marlin (see fig. 6

    ) and was considered enough of an expert to write authoritative articles about the sport.⁴

    He was approached by scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the American Museum of Natural History in New York to help gather information about the large game fish of the Gulf Stream—their classifications, life histories, diets, migratory patterns, and mating habits.⁵

    The ichthyologist Henry Fowler even recognized his contributions by naming a new species of sculpin after him, Neomerinthe hemingwayi.⁶

    One of the largest marlin that Ernest Hemingway ever fought, which was arguably nine hundred pounds, was hooked by his friend Henry Strater on the Pilar in 1935. As Hemingway describes in a letter just after the event (appendix II), the fish was savagely attacked by sharks while they reeled it in and lost nearly half of its meat. It is clear that my grandfather drew on this real-life experience when he wrote The Old Man and the Sea.

    Hemingway had a great number of encounters with sharks and caught several large makos, one of which, hooked near Bimini, was 786 pounds. This Hemingway Library Edition includes as appendix III a previously unpublished list by my grandfather of principal sharks in Cuban waters (see fig. 10

    ). It features his own observations about the different species and how dangerous they become when they smell blood in the water. Hemingway even pioneered a technique for quickly landing large fish to avoid their being attacked by sharks. In the summer of 1935 in Bimini, he was the first angler to bring in a bluefin tuna unscathed by sharks.

    A particularly exciting feature of this Hemingway Library Edition of The Old Man and the Sea is the inclusion of a previously unpublished short story by my grandfather (see appendix IV, fig. 11

    ), which Patrick Hemingway has aptly entitled Pursuit As Happiness. The story makes a marvelous counterpart to The Old Man and the Sea and gives a vivid sense of what it was like for Hemingway when he went deep-sea fishing for marlin in those early days. Set in 1933, the story describes Hemingway’s passionate pursuit of a huge marlin while aboard the Anita, a ship captained by my grandfather’s friend Josie Russell, who owned both the Anita (see fig. 1

    ) and Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West. The story uses nonfictional characters like my grandfather and his longtime first mate Carlos Gutiérrez (see figs. 1

    and 3

    ). It is difficult to say how much of it is based on fact and how much was embellished by the storyteller. Certain elements, such as the reference to outriggers, which were added to the Pilar in April 1935, indicate that the story was written much later than 1933.⁷

    Will Watson in his careful study of my grandfather’s fishing logs notes how he became disappointed with the aging Gutiérrez in 1936, as his first mate made more and more mistakes on the Pilar resulting in many lost fish. These later experiences may have inspired Hemingway’s fictional account of Carlos’s error in the short story.⁸

    Other details suggest the autobiographical nature of the story. The main character resides at the Ambos Mundos Hotel, where Hemingway first stayed in Havana, and eats and drinks at the Floridita, which was one of his favorite hangouts. He also mentions his own record of catching seven white marlin in one day off the north coast of Cuba, a record Hemingway held alone until 1936.⁹

    The heroic notion of giving all of the meat away to the locals is a happy and generous way to ensure that none of the meat from their fishing adventures went to waste. However, what happens in the story contrasts with the reality in Bimini during the 1930s, when massive quantities of trophy fish meat went unused. It was a common occurrence that deeply bothered my grandfather.¹⁰

    Hemingway periodically returned to the idea of writing The Old Man and the Sea. In a letter to his editor Max Perkins in 1939, he mentions that it would make a great addition to a forthcoming book of short stories:

    … And three very long ones I want to write now. One about Teruel called Fatigue. One about the old commercial fisherman who fought the swordfish all alone in his skiff for 4 days and four nights and the sharks finally eating it after he had it alongside and could not get it into the boat. That’s a wonderful story of the Cuban coast. I’m going out with old Carlos in his skiff so as to get it all right. Everything he does and everything he thinks in all that long fight with the boat out of sight of all the other boats all alone on the sea. It’s a great story if I can get it right. One that would make the book.¹¹

    No other record of that trip with Carlos Gutiérrez exists, but Hemingway’s personal collection of photographs, many taken by the author himself, show Cuban fishermen at work in their small wooden sailing boats with typically two men aboard (see figs. 7

    and 8

    ). A photo of a Cuban fishing boat with a large marlin nearly the length of the skiff gives a powerful sense of the heroic nature of these fishermen and their quarry (see fig. 9

    ).¹²

    The onsets of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and World War II (1939–1945) led my grandfather to other writing projects, and it was not until the end of 1950 that he was finally able to write the story of the old fisherman. At that time he had completed the first draft of a novel that would be posthumously published as Islands in the Stream.¹³

    Hemingway had envisioned this manuscript as the first book of a major trilogy that he was composing on The Sea, The Air and The Land.¹⁴

    As Hemingway wrote The Old Man and the Sea, he thought it could serve as a coda to the sea book.¹⁵

    By February 17, 1951, he had completed the first draft (26,531 words) of The Old Man and the Sea at Finca Vigía. Preferring to rise early in the morning and work until lunchtime, he claimed to have written 1,000 words per day for a sixteen-day period that month, much more than his usual output.¹⁶

    During this time the young, beautiful Adriana Ivancich, who was the model for the female heroine in Across the River and Into the Trees, was visiting the Finca with her mother, and she once again provided inspiration for my grandfather’s writing.¹⁷

    Hemingway even suggested that Adriana illustrate the story. Her artwork, drawn from visits to the little fishing village of Cojímar, was used for the cover of the book (see fig. 15

    ). In a moment of generosity before the book was even published, Hemingway gave the original manuscript to Adriana’s brother Gianfranco Ivancich.¹⁸

    Unfortunately, that manuscript has never been found. Hemingway’s final typescript with quite a number of pencil corrections in the author’s hand is preserved in the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. It illustrates some of the last editorial changes that Hemingway made to The Old Man and the Sea. For the most part, these changes are minor additions that clarify or reinforce his existing statements. For example, in the first paragraph of page 1

    , he adds the words now definitely and finally before "salao, which is the worst form of unlucky,"

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