Across the River and Into the Trees is a novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, published by Charles Scribner's Sons in September 1950, first serialized in Cosmopolitan magazine. The title is derived from the last words of Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson.
The novel opens on the last day of Colonel Richard Cantwell's life. He is duck hunting in Trieste, Italy, his thoughts presented in a protracted flashback, with Cantwell thinking about a young Venetian woman, Renata, and about his experiences during World War II. Not long before writing the novel during a trip to Italy, Hemingway met young Adriana Ivancich, with whom he became infatuated; he used her as the model for the female character in the novel. The novel's central theme is death, and, more importantly, how death is faced. One biographer and critic sees a parallel between Hemingway's Across the River and Into the Trees and Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. The novel is built upon successive layers of symbolism, as in his other writing, Hemingway employs here his distinctive spare style (the iceberg theory), where the substance lies below the surface of the plot.
Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American author and journalist. His economical and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three non-fiction works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, before leaving for the Italian front to enlist with the World War I ambulance drivers. In 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms (1929).