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Ernest Hemingway

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  Ernest Miller Hemingway was born at eight o'clock in the morning on July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois. He was the second of Clarence and Grace Hemingway's six children. Hemingway was raised in a strict protestant community that tried as hard as it could to seperate itself from the big city of Chicago, though geographically they were very close. Ernest was taught that with hard work, and by following the rules, he could do anything in life. Young Hemingway spent a lot of time hunting and fishing with his father, and learning about music with his mother. He attended school in the Oak Park Public School System, and in high school played sports and wrote for the newspaper.

  After graduating in 1917, Hemingway bypassed college and took a job as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star. World War II was in full swing, and the United States had just entered the fight against Germany and Austria. Hemingway tried to join the army at age 18, but was refused because of bad vision in his left eye. He joined Red Cross as an ambulance driver instead, and sailed for Europe in May of 1918. He was shipped to Milan and began working immediately, a gruesome experience that greatly impacted his life and work. On July 8, 1918, shortly after arriving, Hemingway was seriously injured by a mortar while delivering chocolate and cigarettes. He was awarded the Italian Silver Medal for Valor because of his bravery in saving other soldiers despite his grave wounds. Hemingway spent his recovery in a hospital in Milan, and had a relationship with his nurse Agnes von Kurowsky. This relationship inspired his later novel, A Farewell to Arms.

  Upon Hemingway's return in January 1919, he found Oak Park boring. Despite his parent's constant inquiries, he did not want to do anything productive. He spent most of his time visiting places and giving talks about his experience in war, but felt misunderstood. One of these engagements was attended by a Mrs. Harriet Conable. Mrs. Conable hired Hemingway to care for her son while she and her husband vacationed, and Hemingway accepted the position. He also began writing for The Toronto Star Weekly, and moved to Chicago in 1920. While living at a friends house, he met Hadley Richardson. They were married in September 1921, and Hemingway accepted a new position for the Toronto Daily Star as their European Corespondent. Hemingway and his new bride moved to Paris, France.

 The Hemingway's first apartment in Paris was horrible, but they were not unhappy. Ernest made friends in the literary circle, including Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway reported on everything from the Geneva Conference in 1922 to the Greco-Turkish War. In the midst of his European adventures, Hadley became pregnant, and Ernest moved her back to the states to take advantage of the good hospitals. John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway was born on October 10, 1923, and by the next January the family was on its way back to Paris.

 By recommendation of Ezra Pound, Hemingway was hired to edit Ford Maddox' literary magazine the Transatlantic Review. Ford published some of Hemingway's earlier stories, including "Indian Camp" and "Cross Country Snow". The magazine only lasted a year and a half, but was a good experience for Hemingway. Hemingway went on to publish his first real work, in our time, characterized by the lowercase letters. It was published by William Bird's Three Mountain Press in 1924, and illustrated Hemingway's theories on literature. Next came The Torrents of Spring, a short comical novel that moved Hemingway to Scribners Publishing. In 1926 they published The Sun Also Rises, which was Hemingways view of The Lost Generation. It was his first success, and established him as a writer. In 1927 came Men Without Women, and he began work on A Farewell to Arms.

  At this time Hemingway's life took a personal turn. He divorced Hadley and married Pauline Pfeiffer, a writer for womens magazines. To start their new life fresh, the couple moved to Key West, Florida, and loved it. They rented and eventually bought a house there. Hemingway took up game fishing and they spent time enjoying themselves and each other. That same year Ernest recieved a telegram informing him that his father had committed suicide. Despite this tragedy, and the turmoil of Pauline's pregnancy with Patrick, Hemingway continued work on A Farewell to Arms. The novel was published in September, 1929, and was an instant success, raising Hemingway to a high level of critical acclaim. In 1931 Pauline gave birth to Gregory, their second son together and the last of Hemingway's children.

  Hemingway went on to publish his spanish bull fighting dissertation, Death in the Afternoon. In 1933 he published Winner Take Nothing, a volume of 14 short stories. In the summr of 1933 Hemingway journeyed to Africa with friends on a game hunting safari. They spent three months hunting, and Hemingway gathered material for his writing. In 1935 he published Green Hills of Africa, with little success. He also wrote two of his best short stories, The Snows of Kilamenjaro, and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.

  In March 1937 Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance. He had met a young writer names Martha Gellhorn in Key West, and went on to conduct a four year affair with her before divorcing Pauline and finally marrying Martha. Hemingway used his experience in Spain to write For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), his next big success. He also based a play called Fifth Column and a collection of short stories on his time in Spain.

  Upon his return from Spain, Ernest and Martha moved to Havana, Cuba. Over the next ten years Hemingway published little, but worked on the novels published posthumously, The Garden of Eden and Islands in the Stream. In 1941 Hemingway took on another assignment, covering the Chinese-Japanese War with Martha. In 1941 he took an under-cover operation assignment to hunt down German submarines in the Atlatic off the coast of Cuba. In the spring of 1944 Hemingway went to Europe to cover World War II. While there he was injured in a car accideent, suffering from a head injury. Martha blamed the accident on him and so began the end of their marriage. While in London, Hemingway met Mary Welsh. They fell in love, and after Martha left him, were married in late 1941.

  Hemingway returned to American in 1946 with plans to write a great war novel, but it never happened. He did write a war novel called Across the River and Into the Trees, and Scribner ran an inital printing of 75,000 copies. It was slammed by the critics, but contains some of Hemingway's finest writing. In September of 1952, Hemingway published The Old Man and the Sea in order to gain back success as a writer. The book was a huge success, and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1953. Hemingway used his money from the book to travel Europe and Africa with Mary. They went through a minor plane crash in which Mary was injured, and then another plane crash in which the vehicle burst into flames, injuring Hemingway badly. He was unable to attend the Nobel ceremonies in 1954, though he recieved the prize for literature.

 After 1954 Hemingway deteriorated creatively as well as physically. He was in a writing block, and stuck to writing about things he knew well. Life Magazine hired him to write a series of articles about two famous bull fighters, and these would be the last of Hemingway's works published during his lifetime. His health continued to decline, and he and Mary bought a house and moved to Ketchum, Idaho, where Ernest wrote his memoirs. In the fall of 1960 Hemingway was admitted to the Mayo Clinic under a fake name for the treatment of his rampant depression. The shock treatments he recieved ruined Hemingway's memory, and ended his writing career forever.

 Hemingway spent the first half of 1961 trying to fight his depression and paranoia. On the morning of July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway awoke early, selected a shotgun from his collection, and shot himself in a remote corner of his house. His memoirs A Moveable Feast were published after his death. Critics called it his best work in years, and praised it for its tenderness and beauty. Ernest Hemingway is a true classic author.

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