How It All Went Down
Birth of Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway is born in Oak Park, Illinois, a place he will later describe 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.
Boy in Girls' Clothes
From his infancy, Hemingway's mother begins a strange 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 in High School
Ernest Hemingway enters Oak Park and River Forest High School. He proves to be an excellent student athlete who boxes, plays football and writes for the school newspaper and yearbook.
Cub Reporter
Hemingway graduates from Oak Park and River Forest High School. He opts not to go to college, instead taking 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.
World War I Ambulance Driver
Hemingway leaves the newspaper and attempts to join the U.S. Army so that he can fight in World War I. The Army rejects him because of poor eyesight, so he volunteers as a driver with the Red Cross Ambulance Corps.
Hemingway Wounded in Battle
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. While recuperating in a Milan hospital, Hemingway falls in love with an American nurse six years his senior named Agnes von Kurowsky. They make plans for her to join him in the United States.
End of Affair with Agnes von Kurowsky
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.
Reporter for Toronto Star
Hemingway moves to Toronto, Ontario to take a job as a reporter for the Toronto Star newspaper. He continues to write for the paper after moving to Chicago later in the year.
Hemingway's First Marriage
Hemingway marries Elizabeth Hadley Richardson. She turns out to be the first of four wives.
Parisian Expat
The newly married Hemingways set sail for Paris, France. Ernest's friend Sherwood Anderson has recommended Paris to Hemingway, saying his pal will like the expatriate scene there. Ernest works as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and soon falls in with a circle of writers and artists that includes Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound.
Hemingway's 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.
Hemingway and Fitzgerald
Ernest Hemingway meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at the Dingo Bar in Paris, just two weeks after the publication of The Great Gatsby. Their friendship will later fall apart in spectacular fashion, thanks to a toxic combination of professional rivalry and a feud between Hemingway and Fitzgerald's wife Zelda.
The Sun Also Rises
Hemingway's first novel, The Sun Also Rises, is published. The novel is critically acclaimed and commercially successful.
Divorce and 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.
Key West
Hemingway and Pauline leave Paris and move to a house in Key West, Florida. Ernest lives there on and off through the 1950s and completes the majority of his life's writing at the house. The couple's son Patrick is born on 28 June. Hemingway's father Clarence commits suicide on 6 December.
A Farewell to Arms
A Farewell to Arms is published. The novel's success makes Hemingway financially independent.
Birth of Gregory Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway's third and last child, Gregory Hemingway, is born. Hemingway calls the boy "Gig"; in adulthood, as a cross-dresser, Gregory chooses to call himself Gloria. This enrages his ultra-macho father.
Death in the Afternoon
Hemingway goes to Spain to research bullfighting for Death in the Afternoon, his critically lauded nonfiction book on the subject.
African Safari
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."
Reports from the Spanish Civil War
The year sees the publication of his novel To Have and Have Not. Hemingway travels to Spain to report on Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance. He develops a strong anti-Franco stance and narrates the antifascist propaganda film "The Spanish Earth."
The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories
"The Fifth Column," Hemingway's only full-length play, and the first 49 short stories of his career are published in the aptly named book The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories.
Divorce and 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.
Submarine Hunter
The United States enters World War II. Hemingway volunteers for the Navy, outfitting his fishing boat Pilar with guns to hunt for German submarines off the coast of Cuba. Though he never fires at one, the military will still award him a Bronze Star for his service in 1947.
Professional Rivalry With Martha Gellhorn
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 Hemingway divorces Martha Gellhorn.
Marriage to Mary Welsh
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 and Into the Trees
Hemingway's novel Across the River and Into the Trees is published. It is the most poorly reviewed novel of his career.
Death of Hemingway's Mother
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 brings Hemingway commercial and critical success.
Nobel Prize
Ernest Hemingway is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming 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.
Exodus From 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
Suffering 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 not to have been in his right mind at the time of his suicide. He is buried in Ketchum.
Islands in the Stream
Hemingway's novel Islands in the Stream is published posthumously.
The Nick Adams Stories
Hemingway's short story collection The Nick Adams Stories is published posthumously.
The Garden of Eden
Hemingway's novel The Garden of Eden is published posthumously.
True at First Light
True at First Light: a Fictional Memoir, edited by Hemingway's son Patrick, is published posthumously.