Facts about For Whom the Bell Tolls
- 07
Hemingway drew on his firsthand experience as a journalist covering the Spanish Civil War to lend authenticity to For Whom the Bell Tolls.
- 06
Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1941, For Whom the Bell Tolls was vetoed by the Pulitzer board despite the jury's recommendation.
- 05
Set over just three days and nights in the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, the novel chronicles Robert Jordan's mission with a band of antifascist guerrillas.
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Robert Jordan, the protagonist of For Whom the Bell Tolls, is an American dynamiter tasked with blowing up a bridge behind enemy lines in Spain.
- 03
Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, and Gregory Peck were all considered for the 1943 film adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls, though Cooper ultimately starred opposite Bergman.
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The novel's title derives from John Donne's 1624 meditation, which Hemingway discovered while researching the Spanish Civil War conflict.
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Ernest Hemingway completed For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940, writing the 471-page novel about the Spanish Civil War in just over one year.