"I always try to write on the principal of the iceberg. There is seven-eights of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg... It is the part that doesn't show." --Ernest Hemingway,1958

The short, strong sentences of a journalist and the stripped, simple prose that was his to create made Hemingway one of the most stylistic writers of modern times. Hemingway sought inspiration in writers such as Twain and Crane, and from works such as the King James Bible. Hemingway hid nothing from the reader, though the reader did have to work to find it. He created reality on the page and was obsessed with such topics as war, nature, and the human spirit. He captured the "American Hero" and is the finest example of a realistic writer. One reporter said that Hemingway "writes as if he had never read anybody's writing, as if he had fashioned the art of writing himself."

Hemingway was famous for his complex characters and iceberg style stories. One of the best examples of this style is Hills Like White Elephants in which he records a simple conversation and leaves the rest to the reader. Hemingway was said to be a compulsive liar, but his fiction was his only truth. He painted a hard and clear picture of the world and the human experience and captured the spited perfectly with his complex character, the most complex being Hemingway himself.

Ernest Hemingway was born on July 21 1899 in Oak Park Illinois. He was the second of six children. Though he was plagued by alcoholism and mental illness throughout his life, Hemingway would create a literary reputation the world had never seen before.

Biography and Timeline

1899- Hemingway was born in Oak Park Illinois. His parents were Dr. Clarence and Grace hall Hemingway, upper-middle class citizens who believed in strict morals, strong religion, and hard work. His early childhood was spent in Oak Park, and in his families summer home in northern Michigan were he learned to fish, hunt, and love nature.

1917- Hemingway graduates from Oak Park High School and began to work for the Kansas City Star as a cub reporter. When America joined the Allied Forces, Hemingway tried to join the army. He was declined due to bad vision. Instead, he applied for a job with the Red Cross as an ambulance driver.

1918- Hemingway quits the job at the paper which taught him many stylistic lessons that are seen his writing throughout his life. He arrived in Paris in June of that year and was sent to Milan. On the day he arrived a factory exploded and he was put to work carrying mutilated bodies to a nearby morgue.

In July of 1918, a few weeks after arriving, Hemingway was seriously injured by a mortar shell that exploded a few feet away. In a letter to Hemingway's father, a fellow ambulance driver said that Ernest carried another wounded soldier off the field despite over 200 fragment that were imbedded in his leg. He was awarded the Silver Medal of Valor. The time spent recovering, and the relationship he found with a nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, later inspired his novel A Farwell To Arms.

1919- Hemingway returns to Oak Park and lives off of a $1000.00 settlement for his injuries.

1920- Began working for the Toronto Star Weekly as a reporter. He moved to Chicago and met Hadley Richardson and fell in love.

1921- Hemingway marries Richardson and moves to Paris as the European correspondent for the Toronto Daily Star. Here he met and befriended such writers as Exra Pound, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and other ex-patriots.

1922- covers the Geneva Conference and the Greco-Turkish War. He was making a name for himself as a writer.

1923- Three Stories and Ten Poems is published in Paris. Hadley become pregnant and the two return to Toronto where hospitals are better.

1924- After the birth of their son John, they return to Paris where he began editing a small literary magazine called the Transatlantic Review. In Our Time a collection of stories, is published in Paris.

1925- In Our Time is published in New York with fourteen new stories. Hemingway also published The Torrents of Spring.

1926- Hemingway's second novel The Sun Also Rises was published. The publisher bought the book having never even seen it. The book introduced the world to "the lost generation".

1927- Publishes Men Without Women, a collection of short stories. He also divorces his first wife and marries Pauline Pfieffer, a fashion reporter.

1928- moves to Key West Florida where he finds his love for deep-sea fishing. He and Pauline have a son, Patrick.

1929- Hemingway's father, Clarence, commits suicide. Ernest publishes his great novel A Farwell To Arms.

1931- Hemingway's last child, Gregory, is born.

1932- Publishes Death in the Afternoon.

1933- Publishes Winner Take Nothing a collection of short stories. The book sells well despite the depression. Hemingways leave Florida for Africa where Ernest tries big game hunting. They took a $25000.00 loan from Pauline's uncle.

1935- Publishes Green Hills of Africa, an account of his travels that was ruined by Hemingway's alter egos.

1936- Publishes his two finest stories, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber."

1937- Becomes war correspondent to the Spanish Civil War. To Have and Have Not is published.

1938- Hemingway and Joris Ivens create The Spanish Earth, a film about the Loyalist cause. He also publishes The Fifth Column and the First Forty-nine Stories.

1940- Hemingway divorces Pauline and marries Matha Gellhorn, a young writer that he had been having an affair with for four years. He also publishes For Who the Bell Tolls. Moves to Cuba. The next ten years would see little writing and Hemingway covered, and participated in WWII.

1944- Hemmingway is in a serious auto accident as a result of alcohol.

1945- Divorces Martha Gellhorn.

1946- Marries Marry Welsh.

1950- Publishes Across the River and Into the Trees. The book is scorned by critics. He begins a relationship with a young Italian woman named Adriana Ivancich.

1951- Hemingway's mother dies.

1952- Publishes his famous novel The Old Man and the Sea.

1953- Wins Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

1954- Leaves for Europe. Hemingway's wife is injured in a plane crash. Shortly after, The couple was in another plane crash that left Ernest with a fractured skull, dislocated shoulder, and injured spine. His spleen, kidney, and liver were ruptured and his eyes were damages by flames. Despite injuries, Hemingway returned to Cuba where he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Because of his injuries, he was unable to attend the ceremony. Do to his failing health, he did little work for five years.

1960- Publishes "The Dangerous Summer" and moves to Ketchum Idaho. Here he began work on his memoirs A Moveable Feast and struggled more and more with alcohol depression, and poor health. Later that year he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic and treated for high blood pressure and extreme depression and paranoia. Here he received several treatments including electro shock treatment which destroyed much of his memory.

1961- Unable to write and dealing with extreme depression, Hemingway kills himself early in the morning of July 2 with a shotgun.