A Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition

By: Ernest Hemingway

Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd

Ernest Hemingway’s classic memoir of Paris in the 1920s, now available in a restored edition, includes the original manuscript along with insightful recollections and unfinished sketches.

Published posthumously in 1964, A Moveable Feast remains one of Ernest Hemingway’s most enduring works. Since Hemingway’s personal papers were released in 1979, scholars have examined the changes made to the text before publication. Now, this special restored edition presents the original manuscript as the author prepared it to be published.

Featuring a personal foreword by Patrick Hemingway, Ernest’s sole surviving son, and an introduction by grandson of the author, Seán Hemingway, editor of this edition, the book also includes a number of unfinished, never-before-published Paris sketches revealing experiences that Hemingway had with his son, Jack, and his first wife Hadley. Also included are irreverent portraits of literary luminaries, such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, and insightful recollections of Hemingway’s own early experiments with his craft.

Widely celebrated and debated by critics and readers everywhere, the restored edition of A Moveable Feast brilliantly evokes the exuberant mood of Paris after World War I and the unbridled creativity and unquenchable enthusiasm that Hemingway himself epitomized.

The Fitzgerald story is one of his best

His story about his experiences with Fitzgerald in Paris is the largest of these stories, and it really a biography in its own right. His ability to describe Fitzgerald’s looks and quirks shows his own writing genius. This is Hemingway at his personal best: the man who supported another genius even though that genius had severe mental handicaps.

Hemingway's Paris of the 20's is Truly a Feast

I'm a big Hemingway fan (if I don't think about his love of hunting!). I read this years ago, but decided to listen to the newest edition that has additional material from the last editions. I love listening to good writing with well-spoken readers. I'm never disappointed with Hemingway, because his prose is so clean.

Paris in the 1920's was truly another world from the Paris of today. As as I progressed through the book, I found myself yearning for a trip to Hemingway's Paris.

This is sort of a food memoire. After all, how can you write about Paris and France and not include something about eating and drinking?
And although Hemingway's food and wine descriptions make you wish you were there with him, my favorite chapters were about his friendship with F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway's son, Jack, who he called Mr. Bumby.

The last chapter includes Hemingway's various versions of his introduction to the book. Not only does it prove writing is always rewriting, but thinking that Hemingway kept every version of a short intro and they're all archived is even more fascinating.

Extremes of joy and sadness

I am in tears at the end of this story—Hemingway’s philosophy about putting the reader into the story worked on me. I’ve never been to Paris except in this story—and felt I was truly there. I recommend listening to this while reading “The Paris Wife”. They complement each other well. At the end you might realize that Hadley was the one “true and good thing” in Hemingway’s life.

40 years later...

A fictional depiction of Hadley as heroine. Slow, easy listen with an interesting last chapter relating notes about the book, hand written by Hemingway.

Fiction or Nonfiction?

Hemingway says the book is fiction because reminiscences are never really accurate. However, I do believe Hemingway captured the essence of Paris and the people he met there through his engaging vignettes. And with memoir, that’s about the best you can do. I know because I’ve tried.