Many of the defining events of his life occurred in the years covered by the volume. In 1918 he went to war in Italy, was wounded and fell in love — unrequitedly — for the first time. In 1921, back in America he met and married his first wife Hadley Richards and at the end of that year moved with her to Paris. Thus began an intense dual relationship between the old Europe of bullfights and mountain trout streams and the avant-garde brasseries, bars and salons of the fifth and sixth arrondissements.

The letters are a reminder of why, at some point in their lives, so many men who grew up in the second half of the last century, went through a Hemingway phase. His sense of adventure is intoxicating. He went to war gaily. "Oh boy!!! I'm glad I'm in it," he wrote to friends back home on first arriving on the Piave front. He describes modern warfare accurately enough, in his already distinct style: "When a shell makes a direct hit in a group where you're standing...your pals get spattered all over you. Spattered is literal," he wrote to his "Dear Folks" on August 18 shortly after he was mortared, and wounded in the legs. Yet, he clearly would not have missed it for the world.

Hemingway the fighter is a pose. It's writing that consumes him and for all the fun, the life he and Hadley lead in their appartment in the Rue du Cardinal Lemoine is frugal and disciplined. For such a bluff fellow, he fits easily into bohemian Paris, chumming up with Ezra Pound ("a really good guy") and Gertrude Stein ("very large and nice"), who will help him on his path to greatness.