Farewell to Arms, A

a novel by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1929, dramatized in 1930. Set in Italy during the First World War, the novel is concerned with the developing relationship of an English woman and an American. Frederic Henry is wounded whilst serving as a volunteer in the Italian ambulance corps and falls in love with his nurse, Catherine Barkley. During his recovery and after an idyllic summer, she announces that she is pregnant. Refusing to marry him because she fears being sent home, they separate and he returns to the battlefield where he discovers his former comrades suffering from warsickness. This is followed by a remarkable passage describing the retreat from Caporetto, at the end of which Henry deserts to rejoin Catherine in Stresa. Together they escape to Switzerland, where both she and their baby die during labour, leaving Henry to contemplate his loneliness.