Scott Fitzgerald once wrote in a letter to Maxwell Perkins, This is totell you about a young man named Ernest Hemingway, who lives in Paris (anAmerican)... Id look him up right away. Hes the real thing. This is perhaps the mostprophetic statement Fitzgerald ever made in his lifetime, because Ernest Hemingway wasindeed the real thing. Only months after that letter was written, Hemingways first bookof short stories, In Our Time, was published, and so began the career of one of Americasgreatest literary heroes. The works that followed stunned audiences around the worldwith the clear, concise language that was used, and the elaborate details that allowedmillions of people an in depth look into the life of an amazingly interesting man. However, the perfection achieved in his literature was always out of reach to the manhimself. But Hemingway was able to use his real life tragedies and make them intotimeless masterpieces. That is why to this day it can be said that Ernest Hemingway isthe most influential American writer of all time (Turnbull, 167).Born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21, 1899, Hemingway was raised to appreciatethe beauty of nature and the importance of spending time in the wilderness. This love ofthe outdoors, including fishing and hunting, becomes quite apparent in his later pieces ofliterature. At the age of eighteen, Hemingway was stationed in Italy, during World War I,as a Red Cross ambulance driver. It was there that he first fell in love with Europe. Hewas immediately attracted to the beauty of the countryside and the elegance of thecultures there, and would later spend many years of his life on the continent. HermanMelville called the sea his Harvard and Yale, to Ernest Hemingway, the continent ofEurope was his (Baker, 17).Not long after his arrival, Hemingway was wounded by an Austrian shell as itexploded nearby killing an Italian soldier, and blowing the legs off of another. Thedetails that followed have ...
