The Torrents of Spring is technically Hemingway's first novel, though The Sun Also Rises is his first major success. Hemingway wrote this novel in a way that would force his publisher, Horace Liverwright, to refuse it and thus break Hemingway's contract. The book parodies Liverwright's star author, Sherwood Anderson, and Hemingway knew Liverwright would never accept it. Hemingway was then able to take up a more lucrative offer from Scribner's.

The novel relates the tale of the intersecting lives of World War I veteran Yogi Johnson and writer Scripps O'Neill, both of whom work at a pump factory. Both are searching for the perfect woman. O'Neill takes mescaline and hallucinates that he is President of Mexico. Johnson is cured of his impotence when, viewing a naked squaw, he is overcome by "a new feeling" which he immediately attribute to Mother Nature, and together he and the squaw "light out for the territories."

The hero of this novel suffers from impotence, while the hero of The Sun Also Rises suffered from an undescribed war wound that prevented intercourse. Many of Hemingway's short stories from this period (such as God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen) also treat themes of sexual dysfunction.

Though primarily a send-up of Anderson's poorly-esteemed negro novel Dark Laughter, the literary proclivities of American and British close to Anderson, such as D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, and John Dos Passos, are wound into the monkey-barrel of satire and parody.

The novel is a powerful insight into the lives and values of the so-called "Lost Generation", chronicling the experiences of Jake Barnes and several acquaintances on their pilgrimage to Pamplona for the annual fiesta and bull fights. Barnes suffered an injury during World War I which makes him unable to consummate a sexual relationship with Brett Ashley.

The story follows Jake and his various companions across France and Spain. Initially, Jake seeks peace away from Brett by taking a fishing trip to Burguete, deep within the Spanish hills, with companion Bill Gorton, another veteran of the war. The fiesta in Pamplona is the setting for the eventual meeting of all the characters, who play out their various desires and anxieties, alongside a great deal of drinking.

The novel is divided into five books. In the first book, Henry meets Catherine Barkley and their relationship begins. While on the Italian front, Henry is wounded in the knee by a mortar shell and sent to a hospital in Milan. The second book shows the growth of Henry and Catherine's relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Henry falls in love with Catherine, and by the time he is healed, Catherine is three months pregnant. In the third book, Henry returns to his unit, but not long after, the Germans break through the Italian lines, and the Italians retreat. After falling behind and catching up again, Henry is pulled out of the crowd to where officers are being interrogated and executed for "treachery" leading to the Italian defeat. However, Henry escapes by jumping into a river. In the fourth book, Catherine and Henry reunite and flee to Switzerland in a rowboat. In the final book, Henry and Catherine live a quiet life in the mountains until she goes into labor. After a long and painful labor, their son is stillborn. Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Henry to return to their hotel in the rain.

To Have and Have Not is a 1937 novel by Ernest Hemingway about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who runs contraband between Cuba and Florida. The novel depicts Harry as an essentially good man who is forced into blackmarket activity by economic forces beyond his control. Initially, his fishing charter Johnson skips out on the bill, forcing Harry to attempt smuggling Chinese immigrants into Florida in order to feed his family. (He double-crosses the immigrants and returns them to Cuba.) Later, he loses an arm and his boat in a shootout while running liquor into Key West. The Great Depression features prominently in the novel, forcing depravity and starvation on the residents of Key West, referred to as "Conchs."

The novel is told primarily through the thoughts of Robert Jordan. Based on Hemingway's own experience, Robert Jordan is an American who travelled to Spain to assist the struggle against the forces of the fascist Generalísimo Francisco Franco.

Behind enemy lines with a guerrilla band, led by a disillusioned Republican called Pablo; Robert Jordan meets María - a young Spanish native whose life has been shattered by the outbreak of the war. The strong sense of duty of Robert Jordan clashes with both Pablo's unwillingness to commit to a covert operation and his own newfound love of life caused by the presence of María.

The novel describes events which demonstrate the incredible brutality of civil war.

The story follows the last three days in the life of a retired United States Army officer in Venice, Italy.

In the period just after the Second World War, a fifty-year-old American colonel pays a visit the site in Italy where he was nearly decapitated during the First World War.

Cantwell (symbolic name) is a skilled soldier, having risen steadily through the ranks in his thirty-year career and having personally killed 122 men (one of them using a nail driven through a two-by-four.) However, these achievements aroused the envy and mistrust of his seniors, who had reached their ranks mostly by political maneuvers rather than martial prowess. Needing a scapegoat, the military demoted him to the rank of colonel after he, following his orders, had led his brigade into an impossible battle in the Hurtgen Forest and lost a large portion of the brigade. After his demotion, he becomes bitter, and criticizes most of the Allied generals, especially Eisenhower, Leclerc, Patton, and Bernard Montgomery. He feels that they have subjected him to friendly fire in doing what their enemy had not been able to do to him.

Cantwell passes his holiday in Venice hunting ducks, eating, drinking, dictating his memoirs to an aide, and having a sexual relationship with a nineteen-year-old Italian Venetian contessa, Renata. Renata is Hemingway's highly idealized portrait of a nineteen-year-old Italian girl he encountered during his 1948 visit to Venice. She suggests to the general that they "stay at the Muehlebach hotel which has the biggest beds in the world and we'll pretend that we are oil millionaires."

His nostalgic liberty over, Colonel Cantwell proleptically anticipates his death by quoting the last words of rebel general Stonewall Jackson to his aide, and then crawls into the back seat of his staff car and dies of a heart attack.

Before his death, Cantwell gives orders for the return of some personal belongings to Venice, but his aide, angered by the colonel's criticism of his penmanship, decides to return the items "through channels", meaning that the honest colonel will still be the victim of politics even after his death.

The Old Man and the Sea recounts an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin said to be the largest catch of his life.

It opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago (but only directly referred to outside of dialogue as "the old man"), has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, feeding him, and discussing American baseball-most notably Santiago's idol, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end.

Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far into the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother.

On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he had left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, thereby ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish.
Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. However, the old man determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin.

While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But by night, the sharks have devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving only its skeleton. The old man castigates himself for sacrificing the marlin. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, he struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and enters a very deep sleep.

Ignorant of the old man's journey, a group of fishermen gathers the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of lions on the African beach.

The first act, "Bimini", begins with an introduction to the character of Thomas Hudson, a classic Hemingway stoic male figure. Hudson is a renowned American painter who finds tranquility on the island of Bimini, in the Bahamas, a far cry from his usual adventurous lifestyle. Hudson's strict routine of work is interrupted when his three sons arrive for the summer and is the setting for most of the act. Also introduced in this act is the character of Roger Davis, one of Hudson's oldest friends. Though similar to Hudson, Davis seems to act as a more dynamic and outgoing image of Hudson's character. The act ends with Hudson receiving news of the death of his two youngest children soon after they leave the island.

"Cuba" takes place soon thereafter during the second World War where we are introduced to an older and more distant Hudson who has just received news of his oldest (and last) son's death in the war. This second act introduces us to a more cynical and introverted Hudson who spends his days on the island drinking heavily and doing naval reconnaissance for the US Army.

"At Sea", the final act, ends in the death of Hudson during the pursuit of a damaged German ship off the Gulf Stream. Hudson becomes intent on finding a damaged boat of German soldiers after he finds they massacred an entire village in their journey back to Germany. In this last act Hudson begins to finally come to stop denying the death of his children. This second chapter rings heavily with influences of Hemingway's earlier work For Whom the Bell Tolls in writing.

The novel is fundamentally the story of five months in the lives of David Bourne, an American writer, and his wife, Catherine. It is set mainly in the French Riviera, specifically in the Côte d'Azur, and in Spain. The story begins with their honeymoon in The Camargue . The Bournes meet a young woman named Marita, with whom they both fall in love, but only one can ultimately have her. The story continues until the apparent separation of David and Catherine.

True at First Light is a work by American novelist Ernest Hemingway released posthumously in 1999. It is designated a "fictional memoir" and describes a journey to Africa. It was edited by Patrick Hemingway who accompanied his father.

In the book, Hemingway goes on safari in Kenya in 1953, the time of the Mau Mau rebellion. His fourth wife Mary is determined to kill a certain black-maned lion, while he becomes intrigued by a beautiful African woman named Debba.

Under Kilimanjaro is a novel by Ernest Hemingway, edited and published posthumously by Robert W. Lewis and Robert E. Fleming. It is based upon journals that he wrote while he was on his last safari. It is a longer and re-edited version of True at First Light.

There was some controversy over the fact that this version of the book portrays Hemingway as less of a macho-man than in True at First Light , centering more around Hemingway as a man instead of the mythical figure that he is known for.

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