The Making of a Legend
On July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb that would later be described as a place of "broad lawns and narrow minds," Ernest Miller Hemingway was born into a world that would shape both his literary genius and his lifelong struggle with the expectations of American masculinity. His father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, was a physician who instilled in young Ernest a love of the outdoors, teaching him to hunt and fish in the wilderness of northern Michigan. His mother, Grace Hall Hemingway, was an aspiring opera singer who had given up her career for domesticity—a sacrifice that would later inform Hemingway's complex relationship with artistic ambition and personal fulfillment.
The Hemingway family spent summers at their cottage on Walloon Lake in Michigan, where Ernest learned the rhythms of nature that would later pulse through his prose. By age four, he could handle a rifle; by twelve, he had been given his own shotgun. These early experiences in the Michigan woods would provide the setting for some of his most celebrated short stories, including "Big Two-Hearted River" and "The Last Good Country."
By the Numbers
Early Literary Success
18Age when he started at Kansas City Star
$15/weekStarting salary at the Star
110Style rules at Kansas City Star
6 monthsTime spent learning journalism fundamentals
At Oak Park High School, Hemingway excelled in English and contributed to the school newspaper and literary magazine. His early writing showed flashes of the spare, direct style that would later revolutionize American literature. But it was his six months at the Kansas City Star, beginning in October 1917, that truly shaped his literary voice. The newspaper's style guide demanded short sentences, vigorous English, and the elimination of superfluous words—principles that would become the foundation of Hemingway's revolutionary prose style.
War and Awakening
When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, eighteen-year-old Hemingway was eager to serve but was rejected by the military due to poor eyesight. Determined to reach the front, he volunteered as an ambulance driver with the Red Cross and arrived in Paris on May 21, 1918. Within weeks, he was stationed in Italy, where on July 8, 1918, his life changed forever.
While distributing chocolate and cigarettes to Italian soldiers near Fossalta di Piave, Hemingway was severely wounded by an Austrian mortar shell. Shrapnel tore through his legs, and despite his injuries, he carried a wounded Italian soldier to safety—an act of heroism that would later be embellished in his own retellings but nonetheless demonstrated the courage that would define both his life and his fiction.
I was blown up while giving out chocolate. I tried to carry a wounded man and I was wounded again in the legs and arms.
— Ernest Hemingway
During his recovery in a Milan hospital, Hemingway fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, an American Red Cross nurse seven years his senior. Their romance, intense but ultimately doomed, would provide the emotional foundation for "A Farewell to Arms," published eleven years later. Agnes's eventual rejection of Ernest—she chose to marry an Italian officer instead—left him devastated and contributed to his lifelong pattern of leaving relationships before being left.
Paris and the Lost Generation
In December 1921, armed with letters of introduction from Sherwood Anderson and a job as European correspondent for the Toronto Star, Hemingway arrived in Paris with his first wife, Hadley Richardson, whom he had married eight months earlier. They rented a fourth-floor walkup at 74 rue du Cardinal Lemoine for 250 francs a month (approximately $20), living in what Hemingway would later romanticize as "a very poor and very happy" time.
Paris in the 1920s was a magnet for American expatriates, and Hemingway quickly found himself at the center of what Gertrude Stein would famously call the "Lost Generation." At Stein's salon at 27 rue de Fleurus, he met
Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and other luminaries of the avant-garde. But it was Stein herself who became his most influential early mentor, teaching him about the rhythms of language and the power of repetition.
You are all a lost generation.
— Gertrude Stein
Hemingway's friendship with Ezra Pound proved equally transformative. Pound, already established as a major modernist poet, taught Hemingway about economy of language and the importance of precision in every word choice. Under Pound's influence, Hemingway developed his theory of omission—the idea that the surface elements of a story should reveal only a small part of the whole, with the larger meaning emerging through implication and subtext.
The young writer's daily routine was disciplined and monastic. He would wake early and write standing up at a chest-high bookshelf in his apartment, using a pencil and blue-backed French school notebooks. His goal was simple but demanding: to write one true sentence. From that single sentence, he believed, everything else would follow.
The Breakthrough Years
In 1923, Hemingway's first book, "Three Stories and Ten Poems," was published by Contact Publishing Company in a limited edition of 300 copies. The book sold for $2 each and established Hemingway as a serious literary voice, though it reached only a small audience. His breakthrough came two years later with "In Our Time," published by Boni & Liveright in October 1925.
"In Our Time" was revolutionary in its structure and style. The book alternated between short stories and brief vignettes that captured moments of violence and revelation with startling clarity. The famous opening of "Indian Camp," where a young Nick Adams accompanies his doctor father to assist in a difficult birth, demonstrated Hemingway's ability to convey profound emotional truths through seemingly simple prose:
The sun rose as they were finishing breakfast. Nick sat against the log and ate slowly. He was sleepy and felt strange.
— Ernest Hemingway
The publication of "The Sun Also Rises" in October 1926 established Hemingway as the voice of his generation. The novel, which drew heavily on his experiences during the 1925 Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona, captured the disillusionment and moral confusion of post-war America through the story of Jake Barnes, a war-wounded journalist, and his love for the unattainable Lady Brett Ashley.
By the Numbers
The Sun Also Rises Success
$1,500Advance from Scribner's
23,000Copies sold in first year
$3Cover price
26Hemingway's age at publication
The novel's success was both critical and commercial, selling 23,000 copies in its first year and establishing Hemingway's relationship with Charles Scribner's Sons, which would publish all his subsequent major works. Maxwell Perkins, the legendary Scribner's editor who had worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald, became Hemingway's editor and remained so for the rest of his career.
Love, Loss, and Literary Triumph
Hemingway's personal life was as dramatic and turbulent as his fiction. His marriage to Hadley began to deteriorate in 1925 when he began an affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, a fashion writer for Vogue. The triangle created enormous guilt and anguish for Hemingway, who genuinely loved both women. In January 1927, he and Hadley divorced, and three months later, he married Pauline in a Catholic ceremony in Paris.
The emotional turmoil of this period fueled his next masterpiece, "A Farewell to Arms," published in September 1929. The novel, set against the backdrop of World War I, told the story of Frederic Henry, an American ambulance driver, and his doomed love affair with Catherine Barkley, a British nurse. Drawing on his own experiences in Italy and his relationship with Agnes von Kurowsky, Hemingway created what many consider the finest American novel about World War I.
The book's famous ending, in which Catherine dies in childbirth, was rewritten thirty-nine times. Hemingway later said he rewrote the ending so many times because he wanted to get the words right, to capture the exact emotional truth of loss and grief. The novel was an immediate bestseller, selling 80,000 copies in its first four months and cementing Hemingway's reputation as America's premier novelist.
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
— Ernest Hemingway
With Pauline, Hemingway moved to Key West, Florida, in 1928, purchasing a house at 907 Whitehead Street for $8,000. The house, with its lush tropical garden and famous six-toed cats, became Hemingway's first permanent home since childhood. Key West provided him with new material—the world of deep-sea fishing, Cuban revolutionaries, and Caribbean smugglers that would inform much of his later work.
The Dangerous Decade
The 1930s marked both the height of Hemingway's fame and the beginning of his decline. "Death in the Afternoon," published in 1932, was his meditation on bullfighting and the nature of courage. While critically mixed, the book revealed Hemingway's growing obsession with death and his belief that grace under pressure was the highest human virtue.
His 1935 collection "Green Hills of Africa" was even less successful, both critically and commercially. The book, based on his 1933-1934 safari in Kenya and Tanzania, was Hemingway's attempt to write a completely factual book that would read like fiction. Critics found it self-indulgent and overly focused on Hemingway's own persona rather than the African landscape and people he encountered.
By the Numbers
African Safari Costs
$25,000Total cost of 1933-34 safari
3 monthsDuration in Africa
$3,000Advance for Green Hills of Africa
12,000Copies sold in first year
The Spanish Civil War, which began in July 1936, provided Hemingway with both personal purpose and literary material. As a correspondent for the North American Newspaper Alliance, he made four trips to Spain between 1937 and 1938, earning $500 per cable and $1,000 per longer dispatch. His experiences there, particularly his relationship with war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, would inspire "For Whom the Bell Tolls."
Hemingway's marriage to Pauline was deteriorating, exacerbated by his affair with Gellhorn and his increasing alcoholism. In 1940, he divorced Pauline and married Martha, his third wife, in a ceremony in Cheyenne, Wyoming. That same year, "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was published to enormous success, selling 500,000 copies in its first year and earning Hemingway $100,000—equivalent to over $1.8 million today.
War Correspondent and Warrior
When the United States entered World War II, Hemingway was determined to be part of the action. In 1942, he convinced the U.S. Navy to let him patrol the Caribbean in his fishing boat, the Pilar, ostensibly hunting for German submarines. The operation, code-named "Friendless," was largely unsuccessful but satisfied Hemingway's need to be involved in the war effort.
His real contribution came as a war correspondent in Europe. Arriving in London in May 1944, Hemingway quickly established himself at the Dorchester Hotel, where he held court for other correspondents and military officers. His room became known as "Papa's headquarters," and his larger-than-life personality made him a favorite among both journalists and soldiers.
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Hemingway was aboard a landing craft approaching Omaha Beach. Though correspondents were forbidden from going ashore, Hemingway's vivid dispatches captured the chaos and heroism of the invasion. Later that summer, he attached himself to the 22nd Infantry Regiment and participated in the liberation of Paris, famously "liberating" the Ritz Hotel bar and ordering champagne for his fellow correspondents.
I love Paris like a mistress.
— Ernest Hemingway
During the war, Hemingway met Mary Welsh, a Time correspondent who would become his fourth and final wife. Their relationship began while he was still married to Martha, creating another painful triangle that would end with his divorce from Gellhorn in 1945.
The Final Act
After the war, Hemingway settled in Cuba with Mary, purchasing Finca Vigía, a hilltop house outside Havana, for $18,500. The house, with its tower study and magnificent view of the Caribbean, became his primary residence for the next fifteen years. It was here that he wrote "The Old Man and the Sea," the novella that would restore his literary reputation and earn him both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The 1950s began poorly for Hemingway. "Across the River and Into the Trees," published in 1950, was savaged by critics who found it self-indulgent and poorly written. The novel, based on his relationship with a young Italian countess, seemed to confirm that Hemingway's best work was behind him. Sales were disappointing, and for the first time in his career, serious critics questioned whether he was finished as a major writer.
By the Numbers
The Old Man and the Sea Success
48 hoursTime to write first draft
5.3 millionLife magazine copies sold
$40,000Life magazine payment
1953Pulitzer Prize year
"The Old Man and the Sea" changed everything. Written in just 48 hours in early 1951, the 27,000-word novella told the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who battles a giant marlin in the Gulf Stream. The story was published in its entirety in the September 1, 1952, issue of Life magazine, which sold 5.3 million copies in two days. Scribner's published the book version a week later, and it immediately became a bestseller.
The novella was hailed as a return to form, with critics praising its spare, powerful prose and its meditation on age, dignity, and the human condition. In 1953, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and in 1954, it was cited specifically when Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Darkness Closes In
Despite his literary triumph, Hemingway's final years were marked by declining health, paranoia, and depression. Two plane crashes during a 1954 African safari left him with serious injuries, including a concussion, internal bleeding, and burns. The accidents were widely reported as fatal, and Hemingway had the surreal experience of reading his own obituaries.
The Cuban Revolution in 1959 forced Hemingway to leave his beloved Finca Vigía. Fidel Castro's government, while initially friendly to the famous American writer, made it increasingly difficult for Hemingway to maintain his Cuban residence. In 1960, he reluctantly moved to Ketchum, Idaho, purchasing a house for $50,000.
Hemingway's mental health deteriorated rapidly in his final years. He became convinced that the FBI was monitoring him—a paranoia that was later revealed to have some basis in fact, as J. Edgar Hoover's bureau had indeed been keeping files on the writer since the 1940s. He underwent electroshock therapy at the Mayo Clinic, but the treatment seemed to worsen his condition, destroying much of his memory and leaving him unable to write.
On the morning of July 2, 1961, two days after returning from his final stay at Mayo Clinic, Ernest Hemingway rose early in his Ketchum home, selected a double-barreled shotgun from his gun collection, and ended his life. He was 61 years old. His death was initially reported as accidental, but Mary Hemingway later acknowledged that it was suicide, following a pattern that had claimed his father, his brother, his sister, and would later claim his granddaughter.
