From Here to Eternity (novel)

From Here to Eternity

First edition
Author	James Jones
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	War novel
Publisher	Charles Scribner's Sons
Publication date	1951
Media type	Print (hardback & paperback)
Pages	861 pp (first edition, hard)

From Here to Eternity is the debut novel of American author James Jones, published by Scribner's in 1951. Set in 1941, the novel focuses on several members of a U.S. Army infantry company stationed in Hawaii in the months leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It is loosely based on Jones' experiences in the pre-World War II Hawaiian Division's 27th Infantry and the unit in which he served, Company E ("The Boxing Company"). Fellow company member Hal Gould said that while the novel was based on the company, including some depictions of actual persons, the characters are fictional, and the harsh conditions and described events are inventions.

From Here to Eternity won the National Book Award and was named one of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library Board. The book was later made into an Academy Award-winning film starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed and Frank Sinatra as well as two television adaptations and a stage musical.

In February 1941, Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, nicknamed "Prew," reports to his new posting at G Company, a US Army infantry unit stationed at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. Prew is a career soldier (a "thirty-year man") with six years' service, an excellent bugler, and a former boxer. He was transferred from his last unit, a Bugle Corps, with a reduction to the lowest rank after complaining that a less skilled bugler, who was a friend (possibly a romantic partner) of the Chief Bugler, had been made First Bugler over him.