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In the six-bedroom victorian house in Oak Park, a horn sounded. It was blown by Clarence Hemingway, to signal the birth of his first son, and second child, Ernest MIller Hemingway.
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Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School. He participated in many physical activities, but he never really excelled. Therefore, he would make up stories about his accomplishments, especially on the football field. This is where he found out about his story-telling abilities. He later became a writer for the school paper, The Trapeze and the school's yearbook, The Tabula, and in his senior year became the editor of Trapeze.
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Writing for the school's paper in high-school, he had gained an appetite for jounalism and writing. In 1920 he started working for the Toronto Star Weekly, and got his first byline on the March 6th, 1920. In December,1921, he moved to Paris to work as a correspondent with his first wife Elizabeth. They returned to North America in 1923. In 1924 Hemingway gave up on journalism completely, after an argument with his editor, and moved back to Paris.
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Ernest married Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, who he met living at a friends house.
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Ernest got his first short story collection privately published by "Contact Publishing" in a run of 300 copies.
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The Sun Also Rises was Hemingway's first major succes and his first full-length novel. It was well received by many major publications. Conrad Aiken from New York Herald Tribune wrote "If there is a better dialogue to be written today I do not know where to find it" However, some contemperary critics disliked it for portraying promiscuous, young Americans who had no clear course in life.
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Hemingway's second marriage was to Pauline Pfeiffer, a devout Roman Catholic. However, it was not perfect; Hemingway travelled a lot, and she therefore had to choose between staying with their children or going with Hemingway. As such, the relationship fell apart.
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A Farewell to Arms is thought by many critics to be one of his best novels. It draws heavily on Hemingways experience in the first World War. The book was initially censored, and words like "cocksucker" and "fuck" were replaced by dashes. Hemingway himself un-censored a few examples with a pen and gave them away.
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Hemingway and his family along with Charles Thompson went to Africa on Safari. This would inspire several stories later on.
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The Green Hills of Africa was written as if it was a non-fictional story about him in Africa. However, it was hardly objective in its depiction of the characters. He portrayed himself as a brave hero-type, and his friend Charles as selfish and mean. The litterary critic, Edmund Wilson put it like this: "he has produced what must be the only book ever written which makes Africa and its animals seem dull"
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Hemingway considered The Snows of Kilimanjaro to be one of his best stories. It was filmatized in 1952 by Twentieth Century Fox
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Hemingway moved to Cuba in 1939, first renting the house Finca Vigía, but after he married his 3rd wife, Martha, he bought it and kept living there until he moved to Ketchum, Idaho in 1960.
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Hemingway began working on it in 1939, and finished it in July 1940. When it was published same year in October, it was a huge success, both commercially and critically. Sinclair Lewis wrote that it was "the American book published during the three years past which was most likely to survive, to be known fifty years from now, or possibly a hundred…it might just possibly be a masterpiece, a classic…".
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Martha Gellhorn was never really attracted to Hemingway, so although he taught her to ride, shoot and fish, their relationship fell apart after a few years.
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Hemingway, as patriotic as ever equipped his boat with friends, a few professional operatives and bombs to pursue and ambush German submarines during WWII
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After Hemingway divorced his 3rd wife, he went back to Cuba where Mary Welsh Hemingway and he got married.
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For his part as a war correspondent in WWII, Ernest was awarded the Bronze Medal.
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In 1950 Hemingway published what is known to be the lowpoint of his career. The story revolved around the last three days of a retired American soldier. This novel was panned by critics and has generally been regarded as the low-water mark of Hemingway's career. Morton Zabel, writing for The Nation, declared it "the poorest thing its author has ever done – poor with a feebleness of invention, a dullness of language, and a self-parodying style and theme."
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The Old Man and the Sea is a novel by Ernest Hemingway written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. The novel first appeared, in its entirety, as part of the September 1, 1952 edition of Life magazine. 5.3 million copies of that issue were sold in two days.
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In 1953, Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Old Man and the Sea. Most judges found it to be the most "distinguished fiction published in book form during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life."
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In October 1954, Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Sweden. However, Hemingway was unable to attend the ceremonies. The Nobel Prize was then given to him later at his house in Cuba. Upon receiving it, he said with humbleness that he would have been happier, had the prize been given to Isak Dinesen, referring to the danish writer, Karen Blixen.
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Hemingway's health had been declining and his eyesight was failing. In April '61, Mary found Hemingway holding a shotgun. She called a doctor, who sedated Hemingway and had him transferred to a mental clinic. He was released in late June, 1961, and two days later on the 2nd of July, Hemingway killed himself with a double-barreled shotgun, shooting himself in the head.
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A Moveable Feast was a set of memoirs about his years in Paris. There, he was part of the American expatriate circle of writers in the 1920's. It was published posthumously by Hemingway's last wife, Mary Welsh. Considered by many to contain some of his best writing, it paints a fascinating picture of Hemingway's time as a struggling young writer, sketching a poignantly sad story of Hemingway and his first wife, Elizabeth.
