Ernest Hemingway

EARLY YEARS Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Hemingway’s mother earned money giving voice and music lessons. His mother hoped that Ernest would develop an interest in music but instead, Hemingway adopted his father’s outdoorsman hobbies of hunting fishing and camping on the lakes of northern Michigan.

Fishing, 1904

EARLY YEARS The Hemingway family owned a house called Windemere on Michigan’s Walloon Lake and often spent summers vacationing there. Early outdoor experiences instilled in Hemingway a lifelong passion for adventure and for living in remote or isolated places. Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest Park High School from September 1913 until his graduation in June 1917. He excelled academically and athletically. He boxed, played football and displayed particular talent in English. His first writing experience came from his submissions to the school newspaper and the literary magazine. He did not attend college, instead he wrote for The Kansas City Star. Although he worked at the newspaper for only six months, throughout his lifetime he used the guidance of the Star’s style guide as a foundation for his writing style. (short, direct sentences)

World War I Against his father’s wishes he tried to join the Army to see action in World War I. He failed the medical exam; later he joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. Soon after arriving on the Italian front, Hemingway witnessed the brutalities of war. On his first day, an ammunition factory near Milan blew up. This first encounter with death left him shaken.

World War I Hemingway was wounded delivering supplies. This ended his wartime career. He was hit by an Austrian trench mortar shell that left fragments in his leg. Later he was awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valor from the Italian government for dragging a wounded Italian soldier to safety in spite of his own injuries.

World War I Hemingway worked in a Milan hospital run by the American Red Cross. Here, he met Sister Agnes von Kurowsky of Washington D.C. Although she was six years older than Hemingway, he fell madly in love with her; however the relationship did not survive. Instead of following Hemingway back to the US, Agnes became romantically involved with an Italian officer. This experience left an indelible mark. Hemingway romanticized love and war in one of his earliest novels, A Farewell To Arms.

World War I

Early Works After the war, Hemingway returned to Oak Park, but did not stay long. Due in part to prohibition, Hemingway relocated to Toronto and began work as a staff writer for the Toronto Star. For a short time, Hemingway lived on the north side of Chicago working for a small newspaper. In 1921, Hemingway married his first wife, Hadley Richardson, and moved into an apartment on the north side of Chicago.

Early Works The building still stands with a plaque on the front of it, calling it “the Hemingway apartment.” In 1921, Hemingway and Hadley left Chicago to live abroad. The couple settled in Paris.

Early Works Hemingway was introduced to Gertrude Stein who served as his mentor and later introduced him to the “Parisian Modern Movement” This was the beginning of the American expatriate circle known as the Lost Generation. His other influential mentor was Ezra Pound, the founder of imagism. Hemingway later said, “Ezra is right half the time, and when he was wrong, you were never in any doubt about it. Gertrude was always right.” Hemingway’s first book, Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), was published in Paris. Later the same year, Hemingway’s first son was born.

Early Works Gertrude Stein Ezra Pound

Early Works In a Station of the Metro The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough. Ezra Pound

Early Works Two weeks after the publication of The Great Gatsby, Hemingway met F. Scott Fitzgerald. At first, the two were very close. Often talking and drinking. The two even exchanged manuscripts and Fitzgerald did much to try to advance Hemingway’s career. Later they became more competitive. Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda disliked Hemingway from the start. She often described him as “bogus” or a “phony”.

Early Works Fitzgerald, 1937 Zelda

La Closerie des Lilas restaurant Early Works These relationships and long nights provided inspiration for Hemingway’s first successful novel, The Sun Also Rises (1926). The novel was semi-autobiographical, following a group of expatriate Americans as they traveled around Europe. The novel was a success and met with critical acclaim. No more than year later, Hemingway divorced Hadley and married Pauline Pfeiffer. That year saw the publication of Men Without Women a collection of short stories containing “The Killers”. One of Hemingway’s best-known and most anthologized stories. La Closerie des Lilas restaurant

Early Works In 1928, Hemingway and Pauline moved to Key West to begin their life together. Later that same year, Hemingway’s father troubled with diabetes and financial instabilities, committed suicide. Hemingway was deeply moved by the death of his father. Hemingway’s next success was the heavy autobiographical success, A Farewell To Arms. The book details the romance between an American soldier and a British nurse.

Key West Hemingway and Pauline settled in Key West where Hemingway fished the waters around the Dry Tortugas with his longtime friend Waldo Pierce, went to the famous bar Sloppy Joe’s, and occasionally traveled to Spain, gathering material for Death In The Afternoon and Winner Take Nothing. Over the next nine years, until the end of his second marriage in 1940, Hemingway would do an estimated 70% of his lifetime’s writing in the writer’s den in the upper floor of the converted garage in Key West.

Key West

Key West

Key West

Key West

Key West Key West, 1928 Idaho, 1939

Key West Death in the Afternoon, a book about bullfighting, was published in 1932 after Hemingway had become an aficionado after seeing the Pamplona fiesta of 1925. A safari in the fall of 1933 led him to Mombasa, Nairobi and Machakos in Kenya, moving on to Tanzania where he hunted in the Serengeti. 1935 saw the publication of Green Hills of Africa, an account of his safari. The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber were fictionalized results of his African experiences. In 1937, Hemingway traveled to Spain in order to report on the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance.

Key West

Key West

Key West

Key West

Key West Hemingway’s active life began to take a toll on his physical condition. In 1938, Hemingway published the collection The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories. This collection included some of his most recognizable short fiction such as: “Hills Like White Elephants,” “The Killers,” “Old Man at the Bridge,” and “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”

Key West For Whom The Bell Tolls was published in 1940. The book was written in Cuba and Key West. Later the same year, Hemingway divorced Pauline eventually losing his beloved Key West home. He then married Martha Gellhorn. The novel was based around an American in a foreign land. And again, the novel represented the casualties of war (Spanish Civil War). The title is taken from a paragraph from John Donne’s Meditation XVII.

Key West John Donne 1572-1631 “Therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

World War II/Aftermath The U.S. entered World War II on December 8, 1941, and for the first time, Hemingway sought to participate in naval warfare. Aboard the Pilar Hemingway searched the Atlantic for German U-boats off the coast of Cuba. Hemingway was sent to Europe as a war correspondent for Collier’s Magazine. There, Hemingway observed the D-Day invasion from the water. Also, his new marriage was over after only four years.

World War II/Aftermath

World War II/Aftermath

World War II/Aftermath

World War II/Aftermath Hemingway’s first novel after the war was Across the River and into the Trees (1950). The novel is set in post-World War II Venice and depicts a romance between a war-weary Colonel and a young woman. Across the River and into the Trees (1950) received largely bad reviews; many accused Hemingway of tastelessness and sentimentality. This was not shared by everyone.

Later Years Hemingway married his fourth wife, Mary, a war correspondent he met overseas. After the war, Hemingway wrote about the sea. The first writings were published as The Old Man and the Sea in 1952.

Later Years Some believe Hemingway’s inspiration from the “Old Man” was his longtime friend and fellow-fisherman Gregorio Fuentes. For almost thirty years, Fuentes served as the Captain of the Pilar. Fuentes died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 104. Gregorio Fuentes

Later Years On a safari he was seriously injured in a plane crash. He sprained his right shoulder, arm and left leg, had a concussion, temporarily lost vision in his left eye and hearing in his left ear, suffered paralysis, a crushed vertebra, ruptured liver and kidney, and first degree burns on his face, arms and leg. Some American newspapers mistakenly published his obituary, thinking he had been killed. The pain was so great from this accident (as well as a separate brushfire incident) that Hemingway was unable to travel to Stockholm to accept his Nobel Prize.

Later Years Hemingway never fully recovered from his injuries. He left his home in Cuba (as Communist tensions were rising) and moved to Ketchum, Idaho. He suffered from high blood pressure and liver problems. Hemingway was also receiving Electroconvulsive therapy (ETC) for depression and paranoia. The results of these treatments was alarming. Hemingway suffered significant memory loss. Three weeks short of his 62nd birthday, Hemingway took his own life.