A Farewell to Arms

During the First World War, Frederic Henry, an American lieutenant in the Italian ambulance service, is wounded on the Isonzo front and falls in love with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. Their affair develops in hospitals and later in secret as the Italian army collapses in the retreat from Caporetto. Henry deserts, and the pair attempt to live as civilians in Switzerland while the war continues beyond the mountains. The novel is a first-person war story and a love story at once, written in spare dialogue and matter-of-fact description of mud, surgery, alcohol, and fear. It does not treat battle as adventure.

Three-quarter-bound in red buckram with a Modigliani paper front cover, printed with a design by Anne-Marie Jones. Red endpapers. Black slipcase.