FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1940, follows Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer fighting with a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. Tasked with blowing up a bridge near Segovia, Jordan's mission is critical to an impending attack. The novel, released shortly after the war ended, assumes readers are familiar with the conflict between the Republican government, backed by the Soviet Union, and the Nationalist faction, supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. At the time of its publication, World War II had just begun, though the U.S. had yet to join. This novel is considered one of Hemingway's finest, standing alongside classics like The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and The Old Man and the Sea.