Few writers have made their mark on American letters and American culture like Ernest Hemingway. Bursting on the American literary scene in 1925 with the publication of the short story collection In Our Time, Hemingway announced himself as a major literary presence and the progenitor of a new prose style. Within a few years the publication of more short stories and a stunning first novel, The Sun Also Rises, had secured his reputation as a writer. Hemingway's best writing came out of the 1920s, but his near-mythic public persona--part big-game hunter, part Hollywood hobnobber, part war correspondent, and all-around tough guy--developed in the 1930s and 1940s, when he was a darling of the magazines and an international traveler. Though the quality of his writing deteriorated with the passing years, he won the Nobel Prize in 1954 before ending his own life in 1961. Even after his death, however, Hemingway continued to...