Ernest Hemingway’s name is recognized all over the world. He’s a member of the Lost Generation which is a group of famous American writers who moved to Europe after World War I was over, alongside John Steinbeck, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and Cole Porter. With his extremely unique writing style, Hemingway penned some of the most enduring classics of American Literature.

He was born July 21, 1899 in Illinois. His father, Clarence, was a doctor while his mother Grace was a voice and piano teacher. While his mother hoped he would take up music, Hemingway was more interested in his father’s outdoor hobbies. He graduated high school in 1917 and was hired as a cub reported at the Kansas City Star. Though he only worked there for six months, the paper’s style guide became a foundation for his later writings.

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After he left the paper, he wanted to join the army, but he failed due to poor vision. Hemingway became an ambulance driver for the Red Cross and ended up getting stationed in Italy. Then, he arrived in Paris just as the city was under German attack. On July 8, 1918, he was hit by mortar fire and seriously injured whilst stationed on the Italian Front, suffering injuries on both of his legs. At this time, he was two weeks shy of his 19th birthday. While Hemingway was recovering over a period of six months, he met Agnes von Kuroswky and fell in love with her. Though she was also in love with Hemingway, somehow, she got engaged to an Italian officer. In 1921, he lived in Chicago and met Hadley Richardson. They married on September 3, 1921 and in November, Hemingway became Toronto Star’s foreign correspondent so they moved to Paris. There, he was introduced to the “Parisian Modern Movement.” On October 10, 1923, Hadley gave birth to their son John. During this period, Hemingway had been writing short stories but they were lost along with his luggage in December 1922. He decided to stop writing for the paper and recreate the stories to have them published.

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His first collection, In Our Time, was published in 1925. The next year, he traveled with a group to the Pamplona Festival in San Fermin and the trip became the inspiration for The Sun Also Rises, which was published in October 1926. Hemingway divorced Hadley in 1927 and married fashion magazine writer Pauline Pfeiffer after he converted to Catholicism. By the end of that year, Pauline was pregnant and Men Without Women, containing the well-known story The Killers, was published. Patrick Hemingway was born on June 28, 1928. Hemingway continued to travel through 1929 and A Farewell to Arms was published. A third son, Gregory, was born on November 21, 1931, after he had purchased his first American home in Key West. A 1933 trip to Africa was the inspiration for Green Hills of Africa. In 1937, he traveled to Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War. There, he met Martha Gellhorn. In 1940, he divorced Pauline and married Martha. In 1938, Hemingway was present at the Battle of the Ebro.

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In October 1940, For Whom the Bell Tolls was published. In 1941, he outfitted his boat and took to the waters to help hunt down German submarines off the coast of Cuba, where he was then living. Hemingway was present at the liberation of Paris. In 1947, he was awarded the Bronze Star for his bravery during World War II. His marriage by then had disintegrated and in 1946, he married Mary Welsh, whom he had met in London. He began writing The Garden of Eden and in 1948, he revisited Paris where he then began writing Across the River and into the Trees. Then, Old Man and the Sea won him a Pulitzer in 1953. In 1954, Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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He then took a trip to Africa where two successive plane crashes caused some serious injuries which included temporary loss of vision in the left eye, hearing in his left ear, paralysis of the spine, ruptured liver spleen, and a crushed vertebra. He also had other injuries as well as a severe drinking problem. In 1960, he called his friend, Will Lang Jr, to Spain to help him print a manuscript of The Dangerous Summer, a bullfighting narrative. When it was published, he was particularly upset by the photos in it. At the time, he was receiving a series of ECT treatments for high blood pressure. It’s believed that this contributed to his suicide on July 2, 1961.

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