Men Without Women

“The road to hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.”

So begins the most famous story in Ernest Hemingway’s second collection of short stories—a book about loneliness, violence, and the silent, desperate world of men who cannot connect.

Men Without Women is Hemingway at his most spare and muscular: fourteen stories about bullfighters, boxers, soldiers, gangsters, and the women who leave them—or whom they leave behind. The collection contains some of Hemingway’s most enduring works: “The Killers,” in which two gangsters wait for a man who knows he is going to die; “Fifty Grand,” a boxing story about a fighter who bets against himself; “Hills Like White Elephants,” a dialogue between a man and a woman about an abortion, a story that says everything by saying almost nothing; and “A Canary for One,” a story about the end of a marriage told from a train window.

The men in these stories are tough, silent, and wounded. They drink. They fight. They hunt. They cannot talk about what hurts them. The women are often absent, or silent, or remembered. The title is not a boast—it is a diagnosis.

This is Hemingway at his most influential: the collection that defined the “Hemingway hero” for a generation and established his reputation as a master of the short story.

• First published in 1927, following In Our Time (1925)

• Contains some of Hemingway’s most famous short stories, including “The Killers,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” and “Fifty Grand”

• A foundational text of American literary modernism, known for its spare prose, its use of dialogue, and its “iceberg theory” of writing

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears—or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the strongest men are often the loneliest, and the shortest sentences can carry the most weight.

About the Author

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist, widely regarded as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, he served as an ambulance driver on the Italian front in World War I. Men Without Women was his second collection of short stories, published in 1927, two years after In Our Time and two years before A Farewell to Arms. The collection was dedicated to his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer. Several of the stories first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Scribner’s Magazine. Hemingway’s spare, understated prose style—often called the “Iceberg Theory”—reached its fullest expression in this collection. His other major works include The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms(1929), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), and The Old Man and the Sea (1952). He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Hemingway died by suicide in 1961.