A Farewell to Arms dictionary–held upside down. The Italian translation had in fact already been prepared illegally in 1943 by Fernanda Pivano, leading to her arrest in Turin. A Farewell to Arms was met with favorable criticism and is considered one of Hemingway's best literary works. Gore Vidal wrote of the text: "... a work of ambition, in which can be seen the beginning of the careful, artful, immaculate idiocy of tone that since has marked ... [Hemingway's] prose." The last line of the 1929 "New York Times" review reads: "It is a moving and beautiful book." However, since publication, A Farewell to Arms
Book censorship in the United States of World War I, and the story of the two lovers, Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley, includes graphic details of a childbirth gone awry. This story strays greatly from traditionalist literature, the majority of American literature at the time, which depicted good prevailing over evil. Some cities, including Boston, banned "A Farewell to Arms" in 1929, labeling the book "salacious." In addition, Boston in the 1920s censored other novels such as "The American Mercury", "Elmer Gantry", "An American Tragedy", "Strange Interlude", and "Lady Chatterley’s Lover". The rise of censorship in Boston aroused local opposition. The Harvard Crimson in 1929 wrote,