Foreword

Ernest Hemingway’s debut novel, the hard-boiled, 1926 roman à clef The Sun Also Rises, entered the public domain on January 1, 2022.

W.S. Cole Press is pleased to offer this important work as a free Progressive Web Book, our new e-book format that can be read and searched on any browser-enabled device and with or without an Internet connection.

Though Hemingway did not consider himself a modernist, the stripped-down style of The Sun Also Rises marked a distinctly new approach to American literature that continues to exert a powerful—if sometimes deleterious—influence on amateur and professional writers alike.

Why is this nearly century-old novel still worth reading? In part, because it continues to provide an escape. Hemingway’s “moveable fiesta” of sun-soaked summer days and endless gastronomic delights still captivates, especially during an era in which smartphones have killed the all-day art of doing nothing.

It also remains a timeless character study of young, alcoholic WASPs and divorcées abroad, and a powerful portrayal of the idle rich’s peculiar habit of breaking the beautiful and corrupting the pure, in this case a brilliant nineteen-year-old matador.

You cannot read The Sun Also Rises without feeling the heat of Spain and of adultery; without tasting the sting of absinthe and of expatriate gossip; or without falling under the drunken sway of nascent American wealth.

Pour a glass, steel yourself, and enjoy.