The Torrents of Spring is a novella written by Ernest Hemingway, published in 1926. Hemingway's first long work, it was written as a parody of Sherwood Anderson. Subtitled "A Romantic Novel in Honor of the Passing of a Great Race", Hemingway used the work as a spoof of the world of writers. Hemingway wrote The Torrents of Spring as means to cause his publisher, Horace Liveright of Boni & Liveright, to refuse publication. Hemingway then switched publishers to Scribner's—who published his work from that time on. The work is generally dismissed by critics and seen as vastly less important than The Sun Also Rises, published in the same year.
Set in northern Michigan in the mid-1920s The Torrents of Spring is about two World War I veterans, Yogi Johnson and writer Scripps O'Neill, both of whom work at a pump factory. The story begins with O'Neill returning home to find that his wife and small daughter have left him. O'Neill befriends a British waitress, Diana, at a "beanery" (diner) and asks her to marry him immediately, but soon becomes disenchanted with her. Diana tries to impress her husband by reading books from the lists of The New York Times Book Reviews but he soon leaves her (as she feared he would) for another waitress, Mandy, who enthralls him with literary (but possibly made up) anecdotes. Johnson, who became depressed after a Parisian prostitute leaves him for a British officer, has a period during which he anguishes over the fact that he doesn't seem to desire any woman at all, even though spring is approaching. Ultimately, he falls in love with a native American woman who enters a restaurant clothed only in mocassins, the wife of one of the two Indians he befriends near the end of the story.
Hemingway wrote the satire The Torrents of Spring in an effort to break his contract with his publisher Boni and Liveright. According to the contract Boni and Liveright were to publish Hemingway's next three books, one of which was to be a novel, with the proviso that if a newly submitted work were to be rejected the contract would be terminated.[1] Written in ten days, The Torrents of Spring was a satirical treatment of pretentious writers. Hemingway submitted the manuscript early in December 1925, and it was rejected by the end of the month. In January Max Perkins at Scribner's agreed to publish The Torrents of Spring in addition to Hemingway's future work.[2] The Torrents of Spring was published Scribner's in May, 1926. The first edition had a print-run of 1250 copies.[3]
Hemingway received a mixed reaction to the novella that was sharply critical of other writers. His wife Hadley believed the characterization of Anderson was "nasty"; Dos Passos considered it funny but didn't want to see it published; while Fitzgerald considered the novella a masterpiece.[4] The Torrents of Spring has little scholarly criticism as it is considered a to be of less importance than Hemingway's subsequent work.[3]
Hemingway Archives, John F. Kennedy Library