10 Troubled Historical Figures Who Committed Suicide

Ernest Hemingway

Nobel-winning American writer Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899. He excelled academically and sportingly at school, but Writing was his primary love. He began a career in journalism, but after the First World War, his writing career took off. “A Farewell to Arms” became his first bestseller. During Hemingway’s career, he published seven novels and six short story collections and two works of non-fiction. But like so many artists and intellectuals, his life was blighted by depression and illness that eventually caused him to take his life.

Hemingway was a happy alcoholic, but he was also a serial philanderer. The repercussions of his troubled personal life had no good effect on his naturally depressive temperament. He was married four times. Divorced by his first wife for adultery, he subsequently married his mistress- only to have her divorce him in her turn for the same offense.

Hemingway’s third wife, Martha Gellhorn, a successful journalist turned the tables on Hemmingway and had an affair with a US paratrooper before divorcing him in 1945. He remained married to his fourth wife, Mary Welsh until his death.

But it was Hemingway’s mind that finished him. A biographer, James M Hutchinson suggests this was because “His high standards created an almost suffocating anxiety in him.” Hemingway’s last years were marked by ill health, as he suffered from high blood pressure and liver disease due to his drinking. But Hemingway was increasingly unable to take criticism, or contemplate anyone superseding him. He began to believe his work was worthless. His depression increased, as well as his nightmares, his anxiety, and paranoia. His intention to die was well known, and despite the efforts of his family, on July 2, 1961, he succeeded when he shot himself.

Sources For Further Reading:

Travel China Travel – Dragon Boat Festival Story – Legend of Qu Yuan

China Culture – Honoring Poet Qu Yuan During the Dragon Boat Festival

BBC – Antarctic Mission: Who Was Captain Lawrence Oates?

The Guardian – Scott Of The Antarctic: The Lies That Doomed His Race To The Pole

History Channel – Roald Amundsen Becomes First Explorer To Reach The South Pole

BBC UK – Edgar Evans: A Welshman to the Pole

The Guardian – Antarctic Hero Oates ‘Fathered Child With Girl Of 12’

Cool Antarctica – How Captain Scott And His Team Die?

Gizmodo – 10 Mistakes That Caused the Most Punishing Nature Expedition in History

Scientific American – How Alan Turing Invented the Computer Age

Encyclopedia Britannica – Alan Turing And The Beginning Of AI