Even Ernest Hemingway abides by the writer’s rule of revise, revise, revise. When composing “A Farewell to Arms,” Hemingway wrote 47 endings before settling on the final one. Scribner, Hemingway’s longtime publisher, will release a new edition of the novel next week that includes all of the alternate endings, giving readers the chance to contemplate how the book might have been different if Hemingway had chosen, for example, to heed his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald’s advice.

Here is the ending that Hemingway eventually chose: “But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-by to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.”

Did Hemingway choose the best ending? Could you do better?