Love Goes to Press

Written in the aftermath of World War II, Love Goes to Press opened in London in 1946 and on Broadway in 1947. At the time a relief for the survivors of Blitzkrieg and ration cards, today it is a devilishly entertaining portrayal of the Battle of the Sexes. In this romantic farce, set in a press camp on the Italian front in 1944, two women war correspondents—smart, sexy, and famous for scooping their male competitors—struggle to balance their professional lives with their love lives. The American literary tradition is replete with stories of “men without women,” but in Love Goes to Press Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles have created a world of “women without men.” Complications ensue when one of our heroines unexpectedly encounters her ex-husband, a famous writer whom she had divorced on the grounds of plagiarism. This Bison Books edition features a preface and an updated afterword by Sandra Spanier discussing her recent archival discoveries, her experience of working with Gellhorn to publish the play for the first time, and the strong resemblance of the leading man to Gellhorn’s ex-husband, Ernest Hemingway.

“Love Goes to Press’s primary interest lies with its enduring humour and stageworthiness. Directors looking for plays by and about women would do well to consider it.”—Deborah Zike, Theatre Research International, “Love Goes to Press was clearly fun to write and it must have played at a spanking pace.”—Times Literary Supplement , “What’s fascinating about Love Goes to Press is its saucy heroines’ mix of competence, ambition, and lovelornness. . . . It’s great to have them liberated from literary obscurity.”—Carolyn Clay, Boston Phoenix Literary Section/DIV>, “Hilarious and fast-paced, the play has a brilliant ending that leaves readers to their own imaginations. And 50 years later, the characterization of the protagonists is still contemporary and real.”—Ming-Ming Shen Kuo, Library Journal, “This marvelously witty farce enjoyed a long, healthy run in London's West End.”—Jack Helbig, Booklist

Martha Gellhorn (1908–98) had a six-decade career as a war correspondent and published sixteen books, including six novels, short fiction, and two collections of journalistic articles.  Virginia Cowles (1912–83) also began her career as a war correspondent and wrote fifteen books of nonfiction, including the 1941 bestseller Looking for Trouble.  Sandra Spanier is a professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, general editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, and author and editor of several books, including Kay Boyle: Artist and Activist.