--- title: For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway: TIME's Review description: The Hemingway classic was published on Oct. 21, 1940 canonical: https://time.com/4071507/review-1940-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-21T12:00:49.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:45:00.721Z article:section: History og:title: Read TIME's Original Review of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' og:description: The Hemingway classic was published on Oct. 21, 1940 og:url: https://time.com/4071507/review-1940-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207fc05fc4988688/698868053c16390f3045a321/bell.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read TIME's Original Review of 'For Whom the Bell Tolls' twitter:description: The Hemingway classic was published on Oct. 21, 1940 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207fc05fc4988688/698868053c16390f3045a321/bell.jpeg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read TIME's Original Review of _For Whom the Bell Tolls_  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 21, 2015 12:00 PM UTC  For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway in 1940\. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway in 1940\. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)UIG / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 21, 2015 12:00 PM UTC When Ernest Hemingway’s now-classic novel _For Whom the Bell Tolls_ was released, exactly 75 years ago on Wednesday, the author’s fans had some cause to tamp down their expectations. Hemingway’s stock-in-trade–finely-detailed stories of drinking and sporting in foreign lands–struck some as ill-suited to a period of great suffering. “There was a feeling abroad that Hemingway was a little too obsessed with sex, a little too obsessed with blood for the sake of blood, killing for the sake of killing. Even his admirers wondered where he was going to find another experience big enough to make him write another _A Farewell to Arms,_” TIME noted in its review of _For Whom the Bell Tolls_. “If ever he did, they thought, he would produce another great book. They misunderstood Hemingway’s apparent obsession with killing, forgot that the dominant experience of this age is violent death.” But, TIME’s critic declared, any doubts about his abilities had been misplaced: --- > “” --- **_Read the full review, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Death in Spain](http://time.com/vault/issue/1940-10-21/page/96/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4071507/review-1940-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4071507/review-1940-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/"},"headline":"Read TIME's Original Review of For Whom the Bell Tolls","datePublished":"2015-10-21T12:00:49.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:45:00.721Z","description":"The Hemingway classic was published on Oct. 21, 1940","url":"https://time.com/4071507/review-1940-for-whom-the-bell-tolls/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207fc05fc4988688/698868053c16390f3045a321/bell.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt207fc05fc4988688/698868053c16390f3045a321/bell.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"For Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway in 1940. 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