Among the nurses attending to Hemingway following his battle injuries was an American named Agnes von Kurowsky. Before long he was in love with her. More than six years his senior, Kurowsky kept him at arm's length for awhile, but eventually she succumbed to his ebullient charm. Nevertheless, Kurowsky's feelings for Hemingway were never as deep as his attachment to her, and she broke off the relationship in a letter not long after he returned home.
But Hemingway never forgot this romance, and Kurowsky later became a primary model for the heroine in his novel of World War I, A Farewell to Arms.
Hemingway's first love, Agnes von Kurowsky 1892-1984
Unidentified photographer /
Gelatin silver print, circa 1918
Image courtesy Ernest Hemingway Collection, John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts
