At the age of twenty-two, Ernest Hemingway wrote his first short story, "Up in Michigan." Seventeen years and forty-eight titles later, he was the undisputed master of the short-story form and the leading American man of letters. <I>The Short Stories,</I> introduced here with a revealing preface by the author, chronicles Hemingway's development as a writer, from his earliest attempts in the chapbook <I>Three Stories and Ten Poems,</I> published in Paris in 1923, to his more mature accomplishments in <I>Winner Take Nothing.</I> Originally published in 1938 along with <I>The Fifth Column,</I> this collection premiered "The Capital of the World" and "Old Man at the Bridge," which derive from Hemingway's experiences in Spain, as well as "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro," which figure among the finest of Hemingway's short fictions.