The Old Man and the Sea (scribner Classic)

A Scribner Classics Edition

Ernest Hemingway's most beloved and popular novel, this Pulitzer Prize–winning American classic follows a Cuban fisherman’s elemental struggle with a giant marlin in a timeless story of courage, resilience, loss, and personal triumph.

The last novel Ernest Hemingway saw published, The Old Man and the Sea has proved itself to be one of the most enduring works of American fiction. It is the story of an old Cuban fisherman, down on his luck, and his supreme ordeal: a relentless, agonizing battle with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

Using the simple, powerful language of a fable, Hemingway takes the timeless themes of courage in the face of defeat and personal triumph won from loss and transforms them into a magnificent 20th-century American classic about resilience, courage, and survival. Written in 1952, this hugely successful short classic novel confirmed his power and presence in the literary world and played a large part in his winning the 1954 Nobel Prize for Literature.

Ernest Hemingway did more to influence the style of English prose than any other writer of his time. He has been called “the most important author since Shakespeare,” by John O’Hara in The New York Times Book Review. The publication of The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms immediately established him as one of the greatest literary lights of the 20th century. His classic novella The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. Hemingway was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. His life and accomplishments are explored in-depth in the PBS documentary film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, Hemingway. He died in 1961.