"Mr. and Mrs. Elliot" is a short story written by
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...
. The story was first published in ''
The Little Review
''The Little Review'' was an American avant-garde literary magazine founded by Margaret Anderson in Chicago's historic Fine Arts Building, published literary and art work from 1914 to May 1929. With the help of Jane Heap and Ezra Pound
...
'' in 1924 and republished by
Boni & Liveright
Boni & Liveright (pronounced "BONE-eye" and "LIV-right") is an American trade book publisher established in 1917 in New York City by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright. Over the next sixteen years the firm, which changed its name to Horace Liv ...
in Hemingway's first American volume of short stories, ''
In Our Time'', in 1925.
[Oliver (1999), 228]
The story is about a 25-year-old Harvard student who follows a "clean" life. He marries a 40-year-old clean Southern woman in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
and the next day they set off to Europe and they 'try very hard to have a baby'. They travel to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, then
Dijon
Dijon (, ; ; in Burgundian language (Oïl), Burgundian: ''Digion'') is a city in and the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Côte-d'Or Departments of France, department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regions of France, region in eas ...
and finally at a chateau in
Touraine
Touraine (; ) is one of the traditional provinces of France. Its capital was Tours. During the political reorganization of French territory in 1790, Touraine was divided between the departments of Indre-et-Loire, :Loir-et-Cher, Indre and Vien ...
. Eventually both become disenchanted with each other, and the wife's girlfriend moves in to live with her.
[
The story was initially titled "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" when it first appeared in ''The Little Review''; it was reputedly based on the 1921-4 marriage of writer Chard Powers Smith and his wife Olive Macdonald. Smith resented Hemingway's story for the rest of his life.][https://archives.yale.edu/agents/people/67487 Chard Powers Smith papers, Yale University]
References
Sources
*Baker, Carlos. American Literature, vol. 40, no. 4, 1969, pp. 572–74. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2923238. Accessed 14 Mar. 2023.
* Hemingway, Ernest. (1925/1930) ''In Our Time''. (1996 ed.) New York: Scribner.
* Oliver, Charles (1999). ''Ernest Hemingway A to Z: The Essential Reference to the Life and Work''. New York: Checkmark Publishing.
*Tetlow, Wendolyn E. (1992). ''Hemingway's "In Our Time": Lyrical Dimensions''. Cranbury NJ: Associated University Presses.
1924 short stories
Short stories by Ernest Hemingway
Works originally published in The Transatlantic Review (1924)
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