Winner Take Nothing

Winner Take Nothing

Winner Take Nothing is a 1933 short story collection by Ernest Hemingway published by Charles Scribner's Sons. The volume followed A Farewell to Arms and Death in the Afternoon in Hemingway's bibliography and consolidated stories first appearing in periodicals such as Esquire (magazine), Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. It occupies a position in Hemingway's oeuvre alongside collections like In Our Time and Men Without Women and reflects intersections with contemporaries including F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, and William Faulkner.

Background and publication

Hemingway assembled the collection amid the interwar period, a context shaped by events such as the Treaty of Versailles, the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War precursors, and cultural shifts in Paris salons dominated by figures like Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. The book was released by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1933, during the same decade that saw publishers such as Random House and editors like Maxwell Perkins influence American letters. Initial serialization and prior magazine publication linked the stories to outlets including Scribner's Magazine, Esquire (magazine), The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, and The Atlantic Monthly. Hemingway's personal life—marriages to Hadley Richardson, Agnes von Kurowsky (inspiration), Pauline Pfeiffer, and friendships with A.E. Hotchner and Mary Welsh Hemingway—formed a public backdrop to the book's publication. Literary debates with critics from journals such as The Dial (periodical) and reviews in newspapers like the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune shaped the early reception.

Content and themes

The collection contains stories including "The Sea Change," "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "Homage to Switzerland," "The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio," and "Fifty Grand," which engage locations like Cuba, Key West, Paris, and Switzerland. Themes intersect with motifs from World War I experiences, modernist concerns advanced by T. S. Eliot and James Joyce, and existential questions echoed in the work of Franz Kafka and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Recurring elements include stoicism resembling ideals in Stoicism as interpreted by readers of Marcus Aurelius, the code of masculinity associated with boxing and personalities such as Jack Dempsey, and social alienation similar to characters in novels by Henry James and Joseph Conrad. The prose style shows Hemingway's terse technique, linked in criticism to the aesthetics promoted by Gertrude Stein and the imagist principles of Ezra Pound. Motifs of fate, chance, and moral ambiguity recall narratives from O. Henry and legal dilemmas akin to cases tried in courts like the Supreme Court of the United States.

Reception and critical analysis

Contemporary reviews ranged from praise in outlets like the New York Times Book Review to skepticism from critics aligned with Harold Bloom's later appraisals. Scholars such as Carlos Baker and Bernard Berenson contributed to biographical and critical contexts, while later critics including Ford Madox Ford-influenced commentators and academics at institutions such as Columbia University, Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, and Oxford University examined the collection's place in modernist studies. Debates touched on Hemingway's gender politics compared to writers like D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf, ethical portrayals in stories akin to those by John Steinbeck, and stylistic economy related to William Butler Yeats's poetic condensation. The collection has been anthologized and critiqued in journals such as The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, and The Sewanee Review.

Influence and adaptations

Stories from the book influenced filmmakers and dramatists; adaptations and inspirations connect to directors like John Huston, Howard Hawks, Frank Borzage, and Sydney Pollack. Radio and stage renditions appeared on programs like The Mercury Theatre and networks such as NBC and BBC Radio. Literary influence extends to novelists including Raymond Carver, John Updike, Norman Mailer, and James Salter who acknowledged Hemingway's influence on minimalist narrative. Themes and scenes have been cited in film studies referencing works by Orson Welles and in screenplays associated with 20th Century Fox and MGM. Translations introduced the collection to readers in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, and Russia, affecting modern writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa, Haruki Murakami, and Vladimir Nabokov.

Editions and textual history

Textual scholarship has traced variants across first editions from Charles Scribner's Sons and later printings by Penguin Books, Bantam Books, Simon & Schuster, and academic presses at Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press. Manuscript material and correspondence are held in archives like the Johns Hopkins University collections, the Kennedy Library at Harvard University, and the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library. Editorial notes by scholars such as Scribner editor Maxwell Perkins's successors and critics at Rutgers University and Indiana University document textual changes, variant story sequences, and authorial revisions. Bibliographies and critical editions have been produced by university series including those from The Hemingway Review and the Modern Library editions.

Category:Short story collections Category:1933 books Category:Works by Ernest Hemingway