A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway is without doubt one of the great masterpieces of world literature. According to one account, Hemingway had a contract with another publisher to publish "A Farewell to Arms," but his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald convinced him to break that contract and go with Scribner instead. A Farewell to Arms was first published by Jonathan Cape in London in 1929. This is definitely the first edition published in the UK. Hemingway was living in Paris at the time and since Paris is closer to London that is a reason why the London edition came first. There are significant differences between the British Edition and the USA Edition. To be sure, they are not exactly the same. The pagination is different. Chapter 31 starts on page 239 of the Jonathan Cape edition but on page 204 of the Google Books edition. On page 215, he kills a sergeant because the sergeant refused to help them dig a car out of the mud. This happens on page 186 of the USA edition.