The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber Resources

Ah, the Internet. Now you can keep up with the story, even if you forgot your book at home.

Test your memory with this quiz based on facts and events from the story.

A website dedicated to being a man, featuring Hemingway safaris as a quick way there. Great picture of Hem with a dead lion, just in case you have been hoping for such a thing.

The site includes a short bibliography, a biography, and excerpts from his Nobel acceptance speech, which he did not deliver himself because he could not be present. What a thing to miss.

See and hear the man himself. LostGeneration.com hosts video and audio of Hemingway as well as a clip from the film version of his short novel The Old Man and the Sea.

Hem's home in Key West, Florida, chock-full of cats and lush, tropical surroundings!

Catch a glimpse of the beautiful home where he lived at the end of his life, and where he shot himself in July 2, 1961.

As mentioned in "What's Up with the Title?" a movie version of the book came out in 1947 and starred Gregory Peck and Joan Bennett, who were A-list stars in their day. The film was put out by United Artists and had big glossy ads in Life, Look, and Collier's. One poster read "A coward… Is he man enough to hold his woman by any means? A vixen… yet desperate slave to another! A man… born to violence yet trained to take whatever he wants!" Sheesh. The other campaign poster read: "GREGORY PECK MAKES THAT HEMNGWAY KIND OF LOVE TO JOAN BENNETT."

Everyone loves Hemingway so much that the United States and Cuba actually made an exception to their embargo so that the papers he left in his Havana home could be preserved.

The article claims that his death was an accident, but history has decided that it was suicide.

Thankfully this version of "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" is under ten minutes. Like the real film version, the video rearranges the events for dramatic effect. Watch at your own risk.

Tune in to see a professorial gentleman talk about Hemingway's heroes and code of masculinity. The fellow also discusses the characters and the ethics of their behavior.

Here's the 1948 NBC radio production of our story, with all kinds of embellishments, and sound effects. They have changed the storyline, added all kinds of descriptions and scenes. It's practically a different story.

Links to audio of the Nobel Prize speech (again, not delivered by Hemingway himself), in which Hem is talking about the plot of one of his stories. You also get some audio of actors reading his short stories.

Pictures of the original version published in Cosmopolitan magazine – and yes, the magazine has sure changed since then. This is no "Are you pleasing your man?" quiz.

Here's a picture of Hem himself, in his World War I days.

One of those movie posters we were talking about.

This screen still just might help you picture the events of the story.