Ernest M. Hemingway
Whether running with the bulls or battling marlin off of Cuba, Ernest Hemingway lived a thrilling life that rivaled his bold novels.
Biography (1899-1961)
1915: Growing Up in Chicago
Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 and the eldest son to a wealthy family. Although he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Hemingway has written fondly about his childhood summers in Walloon Lake, Michigan.
1917: Becoming a Journalist
After graduating from high school, Hemingway entered the workforce, rather than attend college. The young writer moved to Kansas City where he began a career as a journalist for the Star.
1917: Enlisting in World War I
Before the United States even entered World War I, Hemingway volunteered for the Red Cross in France.
1918: Wounded Overseas
While serving on the Italian front, specifically along the Piave delta, Hemingway was struck by an Austrian mortar shell and wounded. He was awarded an Italian Medal of Valor for his service. His time during the war later served as inspiration for his novel, A Farewell to Arms.
1921: Moving Abroad
After his return to Chicago, Hemingway met musician Hadley Richardson in 1920. The couple got married in 1921 and moved to Paris, where he fell in with the American literary crowd, such as James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein.
1922: Lost Manuscripts
In 1922, Hemingway's career suffered a major setback when the manuscript he was working on, and all of its carbon copies, were lost while traveling to Switzerland.
1925: His First Book
Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 and the eldest son to a wealthy family. Although he grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, Hemingway has written fondly about his childhood summers in Walloon Lake, Michigan.
1928: Literary Success
In the late 1920s, he published renowned works such as The Sun Also Rises, The Killers, A Canary for One, and A Farewell to Arms.
1937: Returning to War
In the late '30s, war once again called to Hemingway—but he wouldn't be fighting this time. Instead, Hemingway used his journalistic skills and high profile to cover the events of the Spanish Civil War. He sent more than 30 dispatches and produced the film The Spanish Earth in support of Spain's Republican party.
1944: Reporting on World War II
Hemingway traveled to Europe once again in 1944 as a war correspondent, this time for World War II. As a journalist, he traveled with United States troops throughout Europe.
1947: Receiving a Medal
In 1947, Hemingway received another honor from the United States Armed Forces. The novelist was awarded the Bronze Medal for his work as a war correspondent.
1953: A Pulitzer Prize
Hemingway's first and only Pulitzer Prize was awarded to him in 1953 for his novel, The Old Man and the Sea.
1954: A Nobel Prize
After the monumental success of his novel, The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway was presented with another highly prestigious award: a Nobel Prize.
1960: His Last Novel
It was in a villa in Spain that Hemingway finished writing his last novel, The Dangerous Summer. The novel was published posthumously in 1985.
His Work
The Old Man and The Sea
This short novel, already a modern classic, is the superbly told, tragic story of a Cuban fisherman in the Gulf Stream and the giant Marlin he kills and loses—specifically referred to in the citation accompanying the author's Nobel Prize for literature in 1954.
The Sun Also Rises
The quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style.
For Whom the Bell Toys
In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls.
A Clean Well-Lighted Place
"A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" is a short story by American author Ernest Hemingway, first published in Scribner's Magazine in 1933; it was also included in his collection Winner Take Nothing (1933).
A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable story of an American ambulance driver on the Italian front and his passion for a beautiful English nurse.
On Writing
An assemblage of reflections on the nature of writing and the writer from one the greatest American writers of the twentieth century.
His Quotes
- "The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them."Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961"
- "When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen.” Across the River and into the Trees, 1967
- “But man is not made for defeat… A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” The Old Man and The Sea, 1952
- “Courage is grace under pressure.”
- “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.” A Farewell to Arms, 1929
- “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it—don't cheat with it. Be as faithful to it as a scientist—but don't think anything is of any importance because it happens to you or anyone belonging to you. ” Letter to Scott Fitzgerald, dated 28 May 1934
- “Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
- “As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
- “In order to write about life first you must live it.”
- "An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
- “There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
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