Over the last five years of the 1920s, Hemingway worked assiduously to consolidate his reputation, publishing stories in mainstream magazines and developing what would become a lifelong relationship with the Charles Scribner publishing company. He worked to balance literary experimentation and innovation in the short story and the novel (sometimes courting censorship by challenging the canons of “decency”) and to appeal to popular taste. His second collection of stories includes the classic “Hills like White Elephants,” a powerfully concise exploration of power dynamics and competing visions within a romantic relationship. In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway brings a corrosive irony to the topoi of the wartime romance, complicating received notions of both martial heroism (the military centerpiece of the novel is a shambolic retreat) and heterosexual romance (suggested in Frederic Henry’s and Catherine Barkley’s repeated references to wanting not only to be with one another but to be one another). The novel also sees Hemingway experiment with new modes such as stream-of-consciousness narration.