To Have and Have Not

To Have and Have Not
source
Name	To Have and Have Not
Author	Ernest Hemingway
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Charles Scribner's Sons
Pub date	1937
Media type	Print
Pages	281

To Have and Have Not

Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel centers on a struggling sport fisherman in Key West and Cayo Hueso-era locales who becomes entangled in smuggling and moral compromise. Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and interwar tensions, the work connects to Hemingway's prior narratives such as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls while engaging figures and institutions associated with Prohibition, American maritime history, and Caribbean politics.

Plot

The narrative follows Harry Morgan, a charter boat operator in Key West and Marquesas Keys environs, who is driven by economic hardship after the collapse of his fishing enterprise during the Great Depression. He alternates between honest charters, including trips for characters linked to Cuban exile politics and Havana businessmen, and illicit work smuggling migrants, alcohol, and contraband to and from Cuba, the Florida Straits, and Bahamas. Encounters with law enforcement from United States Coast Guard cutters, confrontations with opportunistic gangs, and personal crises involving family members mirror narrative episodes in Hemingway's earlier portrayals of masculinity and survival in World War I-adjacent fiction. The plot moves through a series of episodes—boat trips, brawls, and negotiations—that culminate in violence and ambiguous consequences for Morgan, echoing tragic outcomes found in Hemingway's contemporaneous exploration of honor and pragmatic adaptation.

Background and writing

Hemingway began composing the book in the mid-1930s during extended stays in Key West and aboard his yacht Pilar, drawing on first-hand experience from fishing expeditions, run-ins with rumrunners and observers of Cuban political agitation. He incorporated reportage techniques influenced by encounters with journalists from the New York Herald Tribune and novelists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein, while correspondences with editors at Charles Scribner's Sons and friends in Paris informed revisions. The writing process intersected with Hemingway's involvement in Spanish Civil War reportage and relationships with figures including Martha Gellhorn and Maxwell Perkins, which shaped character dynamics and structural decisions. Drafts reflect his experimentation with dialogue-driven scenes reminiscent of American naturalism and with moral ambiguity akin to Joseph Conrad’s seafaring narratives.

Publication history

Published in 1937 by Charles Scribner's Sons, the work appeared after editorial exchanges about tone, length, and episodic structure with editor Maxwell Perkins. Initial printings coincided with critical debates among reviewers from outlets such as the New York Times and periodicals linked to the modernist movement. Subsequent collected editions appeared in volumes associated with Ernest Hemingway's Collected Stories and scholarly editions produced by academic presses with contributions from archives like the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Hemingway collection. Translations into French, Spanish, Italian, German, and other languages followed, leading to international editions distributed through publishing networks tied to Europe and Latin America.

Adaptations

The novel inspired multiple adaptations across media. A 1944 Hollywood film directed by Howard Hawks starred actors associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood such as Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, reshaping plot elements and characterizations. Radio dramatizations occurred on programs broadcast by networks like CBS and NBC, while stage adaptations were mounted in regional theaters connected to the American theater circuit. Later loose reinterpretations and cinematic homages drew on themes present in films by directors influenced by Hemingway, including allusions in works tied to Film noir aesthetics and later directors from France to Spain who engaged with maritime drama.

Themes and style

The novel explores themes of economic desperation during the Great Depression, personal honor amid illegal economies tied to rumrunning and smuggling, and the ethics of violence in contested maritime spaces bordering United States and Cuba. Hemingway's terse prose, elliptical dialogue, and iceberg theory are evident, building on stylistic approaches seen in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms. Motifs of masculinity, existential crisis, and adaptation to changing social orders link to intellectual currents from modernism and writers such as William Faulkner and John Dos Passos. The episodic structure and vignette-like chapters reflect both journalistic concision and narrative experimentation contemporary with 1930s American literature.

Reception and legacy

Contemporary reception mixed praise for vivid dialogue and criticism for perceived uneven plotting; reviews appeared in outlets linked to the New York Times, The New Republic, and The Saturday Review. Over time, the book has been reassessed by scholars at institutions like Yale University, Columbia University, and Princeton University and discussed in critical volumes concerning Hemingway's oeuvre, the modernist novel, and representations of the Caribbean in Anglo-American literature. Adaptations, references in film studies, and continuing scholarly debate ensure the work remains a subject of study in courses at universities and in retrospectives at archives such as the Ernest Hemingway Collection.

Category:Novels by Ernest Hemingway