Historical Figure
Ernest Hemingway
1899–1961
American author and journalist (1899–1961)
Hear Their Voice
Original recordings and AI voice
"Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech" — December 10, 1954
Generated by Today in History
Talk to Ernest Hemingway
Have a conversation with this historical figure through AI
Biography
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized for his adventurous lifestyle and outspoken, blunt public image. Some of his seven novels, six short-story collections and two non-fiction works have become classics of American literature, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Timeline
The story of Ernest Hemingway, told in moments.
Red Cross ambulance driver on the Italian front. He's delivering chocolate and cigarettes to troops when a mortar shell hits. Shrapnel in both legs. He's 18. "When you go to war as a boy you have a great illusion of immortality," he'll say later. "Then when you are badly wounded the first time you lose that illusion."
The Sun Also Rises is published. He wrote the first draft in eight weeks, starting on his 26th birthday after the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona. Scribner's publishes it. His marriage to Hadley is already falling apart. He's sleeping with Pauline Pfeiffer from Vogue. The divorce goes through in January 1927.
A Farewell to Arms is published. He may have rewritten the ending seventeen times. His father shot himself the previous December. Hemingway had mailed him a letter saying not to worry about money. It arrived minutes after the suicide.
Wins the Nobel Prize in Literature. He can't attend the ceremony. He's recovering from two consecutive plane crashes in Africa. The first crash left him with cracked ribs. The rescue plane crashed on takeoff the next morning. He walked out of the burning wreckage holding a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin.
Dies of a self-inflicted shotgun wound at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. He is 61. His father killed himself. His brother Leicester killed himself. His sister Ursula killed herself. His granddaughter Margaux killed herself.
In Their Own Words (20)
The age demanded that we danceAnd jammed us into iron pants.And in the end the age was handedThe sort of shit that it demanded.
"The Age Demanded" in Der Querschnitt (February 1925); as quoted in Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation (1983) by Noel Riley Fitch, 1983
And how much better to die in all the happy period of undisillusioned youth, to go out in a blaze of light, than to have your body worn out and old and illusions shattered.
Letter to his family (18 October 1918); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker. It was also published in The Oak Parker (Oak Park, IL) on 16 November 1918. Only 19 years old at the time, Hemingway was recovering from wounds suffered at the front line while serving as a Red Cross volunteer., 1981
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book.
Letter (6 December 1924); published in Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters 1917–1961 (1981) edited by Carlos Baker, 1981
There is no remedy for anything in life. Death is a sovereign remedy for all misfortunes.
Ch. 10, 1932
'Darling, would you like to grow a beard?''Would you like me to?''It might be fun. I'd like to see you with a beard.''All right. I'll grow one. I'll start now this minute. It's a good idea. It will give me something to do.'
Catherine and Henry discussing whether he should grow a beard, in Ch. 38, 1929
Artifacts (15)
More from the Postwar
Explore what happened on the days that shaped Ernest Hemingway's life. Today In History connects historical figures with the events, births, and deaths that defined their era. Browse all historical figures or explore today's events.