|
|
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway was born on 21st July 1899 in Oak Park, Chicago.
The second of six children. He was born at eight o'clock in the south
front bedroom of 439 North Oak Park Avenue. His grandfathers house.
He weighed a healthy nine and a half pounds and measured twenty three
inches tall. At seven weeks old he was taken to Bear Lake to the
shorefront property that his father, Dr Ed Hemingway had purchased the
summer before. It was not until October 1st, on his parent's third
wedding anniversary that he was christened, Ernest Miller, Hemingway at
the First Congregational Church.
In his first year he experienced the pleasures of life on the shore at
Bear Lake and at three he had caught his first fish. When Hemingway
was six, his grandfather died and the Hemingway family left his
grandfather's house (and the house Ernest Hemingway was born in) and
moved to a corner lot at 600 North Kenilworth Avenue and Iowa Street.
It was an eight bedroomed, three storey house, with an office for his
father, where he could conduct his medical business. It was a strict
household, no enjoyment was to be taken on Sunday, the Lord's day.
This was to be spent in church and pursuing religious interests.
Disobedience was punished by a few lashes from a razor strap
administered by Hemingway's father, or a hairbrush from his mother.
Ernest's winters were spent in Chicago, his summers at Bear Lake.
It was on his twelve birthday he was given a present of a single barrel
20 gauge shotgun. Ernest loved to dramatize everything. He made up
stories in which he was invariably the swashbuckling hero. He was also
now singing regularly at the Third Congregational Church and was making
his first attempts at writing. On reaching adolescence Ernest had
developed into a 'well rounded' young man. 'Afraid of nothing' appeared
to be his motto. He loved nature and he sought scrupulously to uphold
the code of physical courage and endurance and he had a determination
to 'do things properly'.
He attended high school at The Oak Park and River Forest Township High
School. Academically he was good at English but uninterested in most
other subjects. He learnt to box and it was said there was a streak of
bully in his nature after he learnt the power of his fists. He took up
canoeing and he wrote articles for the school's weekly newspaper. After
Ernest graduated from High School, his father's desire was for him to
go to college but Ernest had very different ideas. Ernest Hemingway
wanted to join the forces or learn to write.
Having been forbidden to join up for the First World War by his father,
Ernest applied for a job as a journalist and by October 1917 Hemingway
was employed by the Kansas City Star. Ernest had to leave home to take
up his job. His father accompanied him to the train station and stood
by the train until his son's moment of departure. Ernest was to
remember the leaving for a long time afterwards and wrote about it in
'For Whom the Bell Tolls' relating the mixed emotions he felt of
sadness, relief and adulthood.
He first lived in the 3600 block of Warwick Boulevard with his uncle
whilst the Star newspaper building was at 1800 Grand Avenue between
18th and 20th Streets. Later he lived in a small rented apartment with
his friend Carl Edgar, in Agnes Street. Ernest's job on the Star was
to cover the 'short-stop run', which entailed the 15th Street Police
Station, the Union Station and the General Hospital. This meant he had
to write about everything that went on in the Police Station, the train
station and the hospital. So his first training in writing was
reporting stolen goods and crime, accidents and any famous people who
might have passed through the Union Station. (According to his sister
Marcelline, Hemingway covered "fires, fights and funerals, and anything
else not important enough for the other more experienced reporters).
He was trained 'on the job' by studying a style manual which declared
good writing entailed short sentences, vigorous English, positive and
not negative writing. He learned at The Star that professional reporters
stated the way things are. They did not ramble on about how things
might be if this or that were true; they declared what was. The idea
was to tell the readers what had happened, for first a man had to go
out and find what was happening.
Hemingway also found a very good mentor in Lionel Calhoun Moise.
Hemingway as a young rookie was impressed with Moise's facility with
words and his hard drinking, undisciplined lifestyle of alcohol and
violence. Ernest learnt a great deal at the Star but by now he was
bored with mundane news stories and quite desperate to see some real
action.
He wanted to become involved in the First World War.
Ernest had a defective left eye and it was thought his entry into the
forces was not very likely because of this deficiency. However, Ernest
learnt from another young reporter on the Star, Theodore Brumback, that
he had enlisted in the American Field Service and had spent four months
driving ambulances in France, despite having a bad eye himself, in fact
a glass eye.
He and Theodore along with another friend, Wilson Hicks were accepted
by the Red Cross as ambulance drivers. After only six months employment
as a journalist Ernest left the Star newspaper. It was April 30th 1918.
A few weeks later, Ernest and Theodore (Wilson Hicks had backed out)
received a telegram from the Red Cross headquarters in St Louis telling
them to report for physical examination in New York no later than May
8th. The Red Cross accepted Hemingway as an ambulance driver but
recommended that he saw an optician and bought a pair of glasses.
Hemingway ignored the advice, underwent his indoctrination period of
two weeks and by May 23rd he was aboard the ship, the Chicago, bound
for Bordeaux, France and for onward journey to his final destination,
Italy. He had his friend Theodore Brumback and a new pal, Howell
Jenkins beside him.
The trip from America to Italy was a long and tiring one. The three
men, Ernest, Thoedore and Howell stopped off in Paris en route to
Italy. High explosive shells from the German artillery, fell in the
streets around them as they went sightseeing. They spent two days in
Paris and then boarded a train for Italy. On the morning of June 7, 1918,
18-year-old Hemingway stepped off a train at Milan's Garbaldi Station
and assumed the duties of a Red Cross ambulance driver. Hemingway and
his two pals were quickly sent to work in Milan.
There were many casualties in the First World War. Conditions were very bad for the soldiers, apart from falling sick with medical complaints such as trench foot and diseases derived from poor food and conditions, many soldiers were wounded and killed.
Ambulance drivers were important personel and played a very important part in the war. They had to risk their own lives and go into battlefields and pick up the wounded. Surrounded by gunfire they had to carry the wounded back to the ambulance and then drive them on to makeshift hospitals. Or in the worst case pick up the dead and take them to the mortuary.
As soon as Hemingway arrived in Milan an entire munitions factory exploded.
Hemingway's initiation into his new job was sharp and shocking. He picked up the bodies of the dead and carried them to an improvised mortuary.
He wrote a postcard to the Star telling them of his considerable shock at the work he was doing, especially finding women among the dead.
Two days later, Hemingway, Brumback and twenty three others who comprised ACR Section Four were on a train to Vicenza.
Then on to Schio, 24 Kilometres to the northwest of Milan in the foothills of the Dolomites. Hemingway named the headquarters the Schio Country Club.
A newspaper of sorts was published by the regiment, called Ciao and Ernest wrote a contribution somewhat sending up himself and his fellow ambulance drivers.
Hemingway found his assignment in Schio boring. He'd seen action, he'd had an intial taste of war of Milan, (with the munitions factory blowing up) but now he was in a place that was a long way from the front (where the fighting was) and he was doing mundane, boring work, mainly helping civilians. This was not what he wanted or had expected.
Feeling he was not properly involved in the war and wanting to see action, troops and fighting, Hemingway signed up for a different job - canteen duty.
The Red Cross ( a charitable foundation), mounted canteens that fed and provided for the troops who were on the 'battlefield'.
Hemingway was placed in Fossalta, a low lying, heavily damaged village in the middle of the fighting. His job may have been mundane, giving out food to the army but he was right in the middle of the fighting, he was working in a battle ground.
On July 8th 1918 Hemingway was hit by Austrian artillery, six days before his nineteenth birthday.
He had been injured in his knee and foot and had to return to Milan for hospitalization and many operations on his wounded limbs. .
It wasn't until two months later that he was able to walk with the aid of crutches.
But he had been promoted to First Lieutenant and awarded a silver medal of valor.
By October Hemingway was back in his regiment of Section Four but then he had jaundice and had to return yet again to Milan for hospitalization.
By December 1918 he had left the service and by January 1919 he was back in America with 227 scars on his wounded leg.
Whilst in hospital in Milan, he met and fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky. Agnes and Hemingway spent some time together (see the category Agnes Von Kurowsky) but she dismissed him as being too young for her. She later wrote to him after he had returned to the States telling him that she had found someone else. Ten years later, Hemingway recounted his experiences in "A Farewell To Arms," his 1929 novel about an affair between a wounded World War I soldier and his nurse
Hemingway went back to Michigan after leaving the ambulance service.
He was trying to find a job, which was proving difficult. He eventually found a job as a reporter for the Co-operative Commonwealth, a slick paper monthly magazine put out by the Co-operative Society of America.
He was earning just forty dollars a week and he was unhappy and unfulfilled, worrying about his health and his future.
Meeting Elizabeth Hadley Richardson in a friends apartment seemed to put a spring back into his step.
Elizabeth was twenty eight, educated at Mary Institute, a private school for girls and she appeared unworldly, naieve and inexperienced. Although eight years older than Hemingway they married on September 3rd 1920 in the country church at Horton Bay. Their wedding feast was a chicken dinner.
Their honeymoon was spent at Hemingway's father's house at Bear Lake, where Hemingway had spent most of his summers in childhood. After the honeymoon they lived in a small top floor apartment in the 1300 block of North Clark Sttreet. It was grubby and depressing.
Hemingway was not working. He had given up his job with the Co-operative Commonwealth.
He and his wife, Elizabeth, known as Hadley, lived only on her trust fund income, although Hemingway still submitted the occasional article to the Toronto Star.
They lived frugally in order to save up for a trip to Europe and shortly after their marriage they left for Paris. By January 9th 1922 they were living in a fourth floor apartment at 74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine. Ernest wrote his family that he was living in the best part of the Latin Quarter, when in truth the apartment was squalid and sparsely furnished.
Hemingway set to work writing and working on a novel he'd boasted he started in Chicago. He visited Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein in Paris with his wife. Both Pound and Stein were to be a very great influence on Hemingway's style of writing.
Hemingway, desperate to see the world went with Hadley to Italy. In Milan, Hemingway, with the aid of his Press Card arranged a meeting with Mussolini, the emergent leader of the Black Shirts.
He also relived his time in the ambulance service and showed Hadley all the places he'd been to and had been wounded in.
Shortly after their return to Paris, Hemingway left for Constantinople to cover the war between Greece and Turkey. Hadley was furious and did not want him to go.
He was away for three weeks covering the war and when he returned he was covered in bug bites and his hair was so lowsey his head had to be shaved. He brought back peace offerings for Hadley - a necklace of Ivory and one of Amber.
By now Hemingway had some slight notoriety both for his journalism and for his service in the ambulance corps and his first portrait was painted by Henry Strater. It was the first likeness of Hemingway to show the new moustache he had begun to cultivate.
Hadley became pregnant but they took a trip to northern Spain, Pamplona. They were there for the fiesta on the sixth of July and both were amazed at the bullfights and the running of the bulls in the streets. This trip and a couple of others to Spain were to be the foundation of his novel, 'The Sun Also Rises' also sometimes called 'Fiesta'.
They returned to Paris but then went on to Canada so their baby could be born on American soil. By this time Hemingway had written a series of sketches called 'Three Stories and Ten Poems' which were to be published.
Hadley gave birth to a boy to be called, John Hadley Nicanor Hemingway.
Hemingway was now a fully fledged author and his newspaper work was confined to feature articles for the Star Weekly.
He did not enjoy journalism any more and he wrote to Gertrude Stein, now a very good friend in Paris, that he was going to give journalism up and concentrate soley on writing novels.
True to his word on January 1st 1924, Hemingway resigned from the Star. On January 13th Hemingway, his wife and their baby son returned to Paris.
Hemingway and Hadley did a lot of travelling to Europe, Spain, Switzerland during their marriage. Hemingway wrote another novel besides The Sun Also Rises, The Torrents of Spring during their five year marriage.
They separated after Hadley found out about his affair with a Vogue Editor from Arkansas called Pauline Pfeiffer. Hemingway dedicated The Sun Also Rises to Hadley and to his son, John Hadley Nicanor. It was, he said, the least he could do.
All royalties from this book also went to Hadley. Hemingway was, it was said, devastated that he was losing a woman he had loved and still loved.
Hadley had insisted that in order for Hemingway to gain a divorce from her, that Hemingway and Pauline Pfeiffer were to live apart for six months and if, after that time, they were still in love, she would give him a divorce.
During this six month period when Hemingway had neither Hadley or Pauline to comfort him, he felt both alone and guilty.
He wrote to Pauline of suicide. She was in America and he still in Paris to comply with Hadley's separation terms for a divorce. It was fall 1925 and Hemingway wrote to Pauline telling her it would be best for both of them if he died and went to hell.
He had written 'Another Country' during this period. The story tells of his physiotherapy in Italy. The central character was an Italian Major whose wounded right hand had turned into a claw and whose young wife has just died of pneumonia.
'Men without Women' was also being formed during 1925 and 1926.
His other two novels, The Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises, were doing extremely well and Hemingway in a fit of guilt wrote a new will giving all the royalties of his books, present and future to his son, John Hadley, nicknamed Bumby.
On January 27th 1927 Hemingway was divorced from Hadley and on May 10th 1927 Hemingway married Pauline in a Catholic ceremony.
Pauline was a Catholic and Hemingway, it appeared had been baptised in the Catholic faith, nine years earlier by an Italian priest whilst he served as an ambulance driver.
Pauline's and Hemingway's three week honeymoon was spent at a small pension in Grau-du-Roi, a small fishing port in France. Sea, sun, fishing, swimming and writing occupied his time but he cut his foot badly which became infected with anthrax.
On his return to Paris in June after his honeymoon he spent ten days in bed with fever and nursing his swollen, infected foot.
Hemingway fell into a period of depression when he couldn't write, he was worried about his health and failing eyesight and he was trying to write a really good book about his experiences in the war. He was also desperate to leave Paris and to go back to America.
He and Pauline went to Key West, Florida. Pauline was pregnant and wanted, like Hadley to have her baby on American soil.
Hemingway fell in love with Key West calling it a paradise and quickly fell into a routine of fishing and writing, apart from the odd night on the town, drinking heavily, followed by what he called 'gastric remorse'. (Hangover and sickness).
He wrote early in the mornings when the day was still fresh and talked endlessly to anyone he met in Key West listening to their stories and interrogating them on their lives and backgrounds. He was a stickler for detailed information.
Hemingway was particularly friendly with a man called Bra Saunderson, a professional fishing guide and Josie Russell, the owner of a bar called Sloppy Joe's.
His closest friendship was with a man called Charles Thompson, both men shared a love of hunting and fishing.
Hemingway and Pauline were coming and going to Key West for some time until Pauline's uncle bought them 907 Whitehead Street in 1931.
Key West became their base but Hemingway, sometimes with Pauline continued taking trips to Europe.
In 1928 Hemingway's father died. He shot himself in the head.
He was suffering from diabetes and angina pectoris.
Hemingway was now head of another family, that of his mother's and her two small boys.
He had written 'A Farewell to Arms' which had become hugely successful, topping the bestsellers list which enabled Hemingway to send money to his mother, to help her difficult finances.
'Farewell to Arms' was dramatised in New York although it was unsuccesful in the theatre and closed after three weeks. However the novel was sold for $24,000 movie rights.
Pauline had her baby by caesarian section, it was another boy, although Hemingway wanted a girl. They called the baby Patrick, nicknamed Sunny.
Hemingway was always concerned about his health and he had reason to be. He easily fell prone to sore throats, kidney problems and hemorrhoids. He was also accident prone. He had broken his right arm in a car accident in 1930, cut his right eyeball, had a forehead gash, sliced his index finger, and a torn chin. He was also worried about his failing eyesight.
In 1931 Pauline had another baby, Gregory Hancock. Shortly after this 'Death in the Afternoon' was finished.
Hemingway was still writing and taking fishing expeditions to Havana with his friend Joe Russell, owner of Sloppy Joes.
His first 'Cuban' trip taught him the joys of marlin fishing but when he returned from a sixty-five day trip he once again suffered ill health, this time bronchial pneumonia.
'Winner Takes Nothing' was completed before Hemingway took a hunting trip to Africa to shoot lions.
He got dysentery and had a prolapse of the lower intestine. He and Pauline were away for seven months.
When he returned he started to write a book about his African safari called 'The Green Hills of Africa'.
He took ownership of a cruiser, the Pilar. He spent months fishing with his friends on his boat, often leaving Pauline alone with their two boys.
In 1935 he had won his first fishing competition at Bimini in the British West Indies.
Foreigners were unpopular in Bimini and Hemingway's victory provoked a number of quarrels. He offered the fishermen $200 to the man who could stay in the boxing ring with him for four rounds. No-one won the money, Hemingway beat them all.
In 1936 Hemingway met the journalist, Martha Gelhorn and began an affair with her. They were both planning to go to the Spanish Civil War together.
In 1937 and 1938 he was in Spain with Martha, writing 'To Have and Have Not' and a play, 'The Fifth Column'. This he wrote whilst his Madrid hotel was under gunfire. (Because of the Civil War).
By 1939 Hemingway and Pauline separated. Hemingway again suffered from guilt and shortly after their separation he wrote 'For Whom The Bell Tolls.'
Hemingway got a divorce from Pauline and married Martha Gellhorn on 21st November 1940.
But when they set off for the Far East to cover Chiang Kai-Shek's war against Japan in January 1941 their relationship was already strained.
Hemingway could not cope with a wife who had a career of her own. He had bought a house in Finca Vigia, Cuba with the proceeds from 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', which had sold 500,000 copies in the first five months.
He found himself alone for most of the time in Cuba, Martha was acting as a reporter in wartime England.
In 1942 with USA now Britain's ally in the Second World War Hemingway created the Crook Factory, a private undertaking whose self appointed mission was to investigate the pro-Nazi factions in Cuba.
His headquarters were at Finca Vigia and until April 1943 its undercover agents - fishermen, priests, waiters, pimps and whores, collected information on the Spanish Falangists on the island. The organization was finally disbanded and Hemingway concentrated his efforts on sub-hunting.
To identify and harass any German submarines that might be lurking in the area. Hemingway would be on his boat day and night looking for Germans, returning only to land to stock up on food and fuel.
In March 1944 he went to England at Martha's urging. Soon after he arrived he was involved in another car accident. Several newspapers incorrectly reported his death.
In May 1994 in London he met Mary Welsh, and fell in love with her. Martha had joined him in London but things were very bad between them.
Between June and December 1944 Hemingway covered the European conflict. Officially he was attached to the Third Army, but he also went on reconnaissance and bombing raids with the RAF.
He followed the Fourth Infantry on his reporting missions but became so involved in actual fighting his articles were just a pretext to remain at the front. He was a Captain.
Because of his keenness to fight with the army he was court martialled for violating the Geneva Convention, but his name was cleared and he rejoined Colonel Lanham and the Fourth Infantry Division and was with them for fierce fighting in the Hurtgenwald in November-December 1944.
By early January he was back in Paris with Mary. His marriage to Martha Gellhorn was over.
Hemingway did not stay in Europe for Armistice Day but returned to Paris with Mary Welsh.
He then went on to Finca Vigia in March 1945.
Guilty again about his failed marriage to Martha he fell into a state of alcohol and indulgence.
After drinking too many daiquiris he had another serious car crash.
On March 14 1946 with his divorce finalised from Martha he married Mary Welsh.
He also started work on two projects 'The Garden of Eden' and the first part of his proposed World War Two trilogy which was published after his death as 'Islands in the Stream'. His health was deteriorating and his drinking had increased. His writing had almost come to a grinding stop and with the death of many of his close friends including his second wife Pauline Pfieffer, his mother and his publisher, Charles Scribner, Hemingway often found himself contemplating his life and what he felt was his immediate death.
Hemingway and Mary went to Northern Italy so he could relive his ambulance driving days.
He met a woman called Adriana Ivancich and fell in love with her. This meeting inspired 'Across the River and Into the Trees'.
The novel was panned by critics but Hemingway quickly followed that novel with 'The Old Man and the Sea' which won him critical acclaim again and he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1953.
In June 1953 Hemingway and Mary went to Europe, Hemingway was planning an appendix to 'Death in the Afternoon'.
He travelled on to Mombassa and here he conducted a ritual courtship with a young Wakambu girl.
His accidents continued in 1954 and he had two plane crashes, the second so serious that once again news of his death was published. He returned to Cuba only partly recovered from his serious injuries and saw Adriana for the last time.
On 28 October 1954 Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was too ill to receive the award in Stockholm but held a party at Finca Vigia.
Filming of the 'Old Man and the Sea' started in in the mid 50's and he became involved in that.
He was in Europe from September 1956 to January 1957 and he set sail for Spain in May 1959, a month after Fidel Castro's troops entered Havana.
When he returned to Havana in early November he publicly declared his support for the revolutionaries.
In the Spring of 1960 he completed his memoirs of life in Paris in the early twenties called a 'Moveable Feast'.
Hemingway left Cuba for the last time in July 1960.
He was already showing signs of mental illness, his health had collapsed and he was forced more and more to rely on alcohol.
In August he went to Spain alone but was forced to cut short his trip and return to Idaho.
On 30th November he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic for the first time. He stayed about a month.
He was readmitted three months later and stayed another two months.
He'd found his memory had gone and he couldn't write any more.
Hemingway killed himself on a log cabin in Ketcham, Idaho on Sunday 2 July 1961. He tripped the trigger of his double barelled shotgun and was instantly killed.
In Our Time (1924, 1925)
The Torrents of Spring (1926)
The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Men Without Women (1927)
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
Death in the Afternoon (1932)
Winner Take Nothing (1933)
Green Hills of Africa (1935)
To Have and Have Not (1937)
The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1939)
Across the River and Into the Trees (1950)
The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
Island in the Stream (1970)
The Dangerous Summer (1985)
The Garden of Eden (1986)
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
Old Man at the Bridge
Up in Michigan
On the Quai at Smyrna
Indian Camp
The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife
The End of Something
The Three-Day Blow
The Battler
A Very Short Story
Soldier's Home
The Revolutionist
Cat in the Rain
Out of Season
Cross-Country Snow
My Old Man
Big Two-Hearted River: Part I
Big Two-Hearted River: Part II
The Undefeated
In Another Country
Hills Like White Elephants
The Killers
Che Ti Dice La Patria?
Fifty Grand
A Simple Enquiry
Ten Indians
A Canary for One
An Alpine Idyll
A Pursuit Race
Today Is Friday
Banal Story
Now I Lay Me
After the Storm
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
The Light of the World
God Rest You Merry Gentlemen
The Sea Change
A Way You'll Never Be
The Mother of a Queen
One Reader Writes
Homage to Switzerland
A Day's Wait
A Natural History of the Dead
Wine of Wyoming
The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio
Father and Sons
One Trip Across
The Tradesman's Return
The Denunciation
The Butterfly and the Tank
Night Before Battle
Under the Ridge
Nobody Ever Dies
The Good Lion
The Faithful Bull
Get a Seeing-Eye Dog
A Man of the World
Summer People
The Last Good Country
An African Story
A Train Trip
The Porter
Black Ass at the Cross Roads
Landscape with Figures
I Guess Everything Reminds You of Something
Great News from the Mainland
The Strange Country