Ernest Hemingway: Literary Giant

By Kate O'Dell

Ernest Hemingway, is considered one of America's greatest authors of the 20th century. He is the author of classics like 'The Old Man and the Sea', 'For Whom the Bell Tolls', 'A Farewell to Arms', and 'The Sun Also Rises'.

Hemingway led a full life, serving and reporting overseas in both world wars. He lived in a variety of places, from Paris, to Idaho, Cuba, to Spain. He survived multiple plane crashes, car crashes, dysentery, concussions, and so many more incidents.

He was an extremely intriguing person, whose literary works still enthrall readers to this day. This ebook is a brief look into his background, the short stories and novels that he wrote, as well as the many exploits that he was involved in all over the world. Hemingway died more than sixty years ago, but even after all this time, his story continues to interest people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlie O’Brien
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201060350

Book preview

Ernest Hemingway’s Childhood

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899, in Oak Park, Illinois. Oak Park was a rich suburb, located west of Chicago. His parents were Clarence Edmonds Hemingway (a physician), and Grace Hall Hemingway (a musician). They were well respected members of society, and had a great education. Oak Park was an extremely conservative neighbourhood, with a lot of churches, and well-off families.

Clarence and Grace Hemingway had married in 1896, and at first they had lived with Grace’s father, Ernest Miller Hall. In total, they had six children. Their second child was a son, who they named after Grace’s father. Marcelline was born in 1898, Ursula in 1902, Madelaine in 1904, Carol was born in 1911, and Leicester was born in 1915.

As young children, they wore androgynous clothing, as this was the Victorian tradition at the time. They didn’t like to differentiate between genders. Ernest, and Marcelline looked practically like twins, which Grace loved. For his first three years, Ernest was dressed in the same frilly outfits as his sister.

Grace Hemingway was a musician, who was well-respected in their community. She taught Ernest how to play the cello, even though he was determined not to learn the instrument. When he was older, Ernest did admit that learning the cello did help his writing style. When he wrote ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, Ernest used ‘contrapuntal structure’. In adulthood, Ernest was quite vocal about how he hated his mother. He got along better with his father.

From 1913-17, Ernest Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School, in Oak Park. Ernest was an athlete, and he was heavily involved in multiple sports – football, water polo, boxing, track and field, etc. he was also in the school orchestra for two years, along with his sister, Marcelline.

Ernest was an excellent English student. During his last two years of high school, he was editor for the school’s newspaper, and yearbook (the Trapeze, and Tabula). Ernest tried his best to imitate sportswriters, and had a pseudonym, Ring Lardner Jr. This was because he liked Ring Lardner, from the Chicago Tribune.

Ernest worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist. This was something that a lot of authors, such as Mark Twain, and Sinclair Lewis, had done as well. Once he’d graduated, Ernest Hemingway was hired on as cub reporter for The Kansas City Star. He was only employed there for six months. But while he worked there, he got to use the paper’s style guide as a foundation for his writing. The style guide instructed him to write with short sentences, short first paragraphs. And also, to write with positivity, not negativity.

Every summer, Ernest and his father would travel to Windemere, on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, Michigan. His father taught Ernest how to hunt, fish, and