For whom the bell tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway released in 1948. The novel tells the story of Robert Gordon, a young American member of the international brigades accompanying a communist war gang during the Spanish Civil War. Robert Gordon, as an expert in the use of explosives, was appointed to blow up a bridge during an attack on the city of Sqoubia. This novel is widely considered one of Hemingway's greatest works, next to Then the Sun Rises, the Sheikh, the Sea, and Farewell to Arms.