Ernest Hemingway
EARLY YEARS
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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
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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
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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
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Hemingway was wounded delivering supplies. This ended his wartime
career.
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He was hit by an Austrian trench mortar shell that left fragments in his leg.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Two weeks after the publication of The Great Gatsby, Hemingway met F.
Scott Fitzgerald.
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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.
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Later they became more competitive.
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Fitzgerald’s wife Zelda disliked Hemingway from the start. She often
described him as “bogus” or a “phony”.
Early Works
Fitzgerald, 1937
Zelda
Early Works
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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
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In 1928, Hemingway and Pauline moved to Key West to begin their life
together.
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Later that same year, Hemingway’s father troubled with diabetes and
financial instabilities, committed suicide.
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Hemingway was deeply moved by the death of his father.
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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1935 saw the publication of Green Hills of Africa, an account of his safari.
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The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber
were fictionalized results of his African experiences.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.