-
The Birth of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway is born in Oak Park, Illinois, he will later describe it as a town of "wide lawns and narrow minds." He is the second of six children of Clarence Hemingway, a doctor, and Grace Hall Hemingway, a music teacher. -
Period: to
1899
-
Mother Dresses him in girls clothes!
Hemingway's mother begins a very peculiar habit of dressing her son like a girl, complete with dresses and long hair, and his older sister as a boy, with overalls and cropped hair! When Ernest is six, she finally ends the charade and allows him to cut his long hair. The damage has already been done. In adulthood, his friend John dos Passos will describe Hemingway as the only man he ever knew who truly hated his mother. -
Hemingway is in Highschool
Ernest Hemingway enters Oak Park and River Forest High School. He turns out to be an very good student and athlete who boxes, plays football and writes for the school newspaper and yearbook. -
Hemingway Graduates
Hemingway then graduates from Oak Park and River Forest High School. He choses not to go to college, but instead take a job as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star newspaper. The Star's style guidelines influence his writing style for the rest of his career: Use short sentences, short first paragraphs, and vigorous English. -
Leaves the newspaper
Hemingway leaves the newspaper and attempts to join the U.S. Army so that he can fight in World War 1, but The Army rejects him because of poor eyesight. He then volunteers as a driver with the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. -
Wounded!
While passing out supplies to soldiers in Italy, Hemingway is seriously injured by a trench mortar and machine gun. The blast leaves shell fragments in his legs. The Italian government awards him a Silver Medal of Military Valor for dragging a wounded Italian soldier to safety after the attack, but his career as an ambulance driver is over. Hemingway falls in love with an American nurse in a hospital named Agnes von Kurowsky. They make plans for her to come to the U.S. -
Heartbroken
Hemingway returns to the United States. Agnes soon writes to him to tell him that she has fallen in love with an Italian officer. Hemingway is heartbroken. Their romance inspires the relationship in "A Farewell to Arms". -
To Canada
Hemingway moves to Toronto to take a job as a reporter -
Gets Married!
Hemingway Marries Elizebeth Hadley Richardson, the first of four wives. -
First Publication
Hemingway's first book, "Three Stories and Ten Poems", is published. In the same year, Hemingway brings his pregnant wife to watch a bullfight in Pamplona, Spain, hoping it will toughen up their unborn son. Hemingway's first child, John "Jack" Hemingway, is born on 10 October… but it's unclear what influence the bulls had on him. -
First Novel
Hemingway's first novel, "The Sun Also Rises", is published. The novel is critically acclaimed and commercially successful. -
Divorce & Remarriage
Ernest Hemingway divorces Elizabeth Hadley on 4 April. One month later he marries Pauline Pfeiffer, a fashion writer. The same year sees publication of his short story collection "Men Without Women". -
Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms is finally published. The novel's success makes Hemingway financially independent. -
third and last child
Ernest Hemingway's third and last child, Gregory Hemingway, is born. Hemingway calls the boy "Gig"; in adulthood,he is a cross-dresser, Gregory chooses to call himself Gloria. This enrages his 'ultra-macho' father. -
Safari in Africa
Pauline and Ernest travel to Kenya for a ten-week safari. Hemingway falls in love with the continent. His subsequent trips there inspire many works of fiction and nonfiction, including the 1935 book "Green Hills of Africa" and the short stories "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." -
Divorce & Remarriage again
Hemingway divorces Pauline on 4 November. Less than three weeks later, he marries the journalist Martha Gellhorn. The couple settles in Finca Vigia, the Cuban estate where Hemingway will live, off and on, for twenty years. The Spanish Civil War novel For Whom the Bell Tolls is published in the same year. -
wifes urging
At his wife's urging, Hemingway goes to Europe as a war correspondent for Collier's magazine. Professional rivalry with Martha, who is also an accomplished war correspondent, soon leads to the breakup of their marriage. -
third divorce
Ernest Divorces Martha Gellhorn -
Marriage
About a year later Ernest marries another war correspondent, Mary Welsh, his fourth and final wife, on 14 March. On 19 August, she miscarries due to an ectopic pregnancy. The couple will produce no children together. -
Across the River
Hemingway's novel "Across the River and Into the Trees" is published. It is the most poorly reviewed novel of his career. -
Mom Dies
Hemingway's mother Grace dies. -
The Old Man and the Sea
The novella "The Old Man and the Sea" is published in Life magazine. The story of Santiago the fisherman gets Hemingway commercial and critical success. -
Pulitzer Prize
Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. -
Nobel Prize in Lit
Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the fifth American author to receive the award. Hemingway is still recovering from serious injuries sustained in two separate plane crashes and a bushfire accident earlier in the year and is unable to travel to Stockholm to receive the award. The American ambassador John C. Cabot accepts the prize on his behalf and reads his speech aloud. -
Leaving Cuba
Hemingway leaves Cuba forever following the 1959 revolution in which his acquaintance Fidel Castro leads communist revolutionaries to power. The Cuban government takes possession of his home, Finca Vigia, and will later turn it into a Hemingway museum -
Suicide
Hemingway Suffered from depression, alcoholism, and numerous physical ailments, Ernest Hemingway commits suicide with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. He receives a Catholic burial, as the church judges him to have been out of his right mind at the time of his suicide. He is buried in Ketchum.
