Ernest Hemingway published his first major short-story collection, In Our Time, in 1925. Boni & Liveright issued the New York edition on October 5, combining fourteen short stories with brief prose vignettes placed between them.
The collection’s publication history can cause confusion. Hemingway had already published a small Paris volume titled in our time in 1924, but that edition consisted primarily of eighteen vignettes. The 1925 American book was the fuller short-story collection generally identified as his first major collection.
In Our Time includes early versions of stories that became central to Hemingway’s reputation, including “Indian Camp” and “Big Two-Hearted River.” Many pieces feature Nick Adams, a recurring character whose experiences reflect childhood, war, trauma, and life in the natural world. The collection also includes scenes involving war, bullfighting, violence, and emotional estrangement.
Readers often connect the book with Hemingway’s “iceberg theory,” in which restrained language suggests more emotion and meaning than the text states directly. The interwoven structure also gives the collection a cumulative effect, linking seemingly separate episodes through recurring themes of loss, fear, and endurance.