Famous for his sparse and direct style, Ernest Hemingway is one of the 20th century’s most influential writers. Since he rose to literary stardom in the 1920s, his novels and short stories have spawned countless admirers and imitators.

However, between his frontline work as a war correspondent and his love of bullfighting and deep sea fishing, the legend of Hemingway’s life beyond the pages is just as fascinating as his stories.

Some of the extraordinary tales you might have heard about Hemingway are little more than fiction – including a few started by the writer himself, who was known to spin a yarn even when he wasn’t at the typewriter. But many more are completely true – ranging from exciting and entertaining to terribly tragic.

To give you an insight into the storied life of this Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, we’ve gathered 15 of our favourite facts about Ernest Hemingway.

1. Hemingway was seriously injured during World War One

Hemingway often exaggerated his deeds in various 20th-century conflicts, but it’s still fair to say the swashbuckling writer saw his fair share of action. This all started in 1918 when he volunteered as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross during World War One – and it wasn’t long before he experienced the heavy toll of war firsthand.

Not long after arriving in Europe, while handing out cigarettes and chocolates to Italian soldiers, Hemingway was struck by an Austrian mortar shell, sustaining serious shrapnel wounds. He escaped with his life thanks to a nearby Italian soldier called Fedele Temperini, who took the brunt of the explosion and sadly died.

The Italian government awarded Hemingway the Silver Medal of Valor for his service. He was one of the first Americans to receive the honour.

2. Hemingway fell in love with his nurse

After sustaining his injuries in 1918, Hemingway spent six months recovering in a Milan hospital. During that time, he fell in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse seven years his senior.

What started as a mild flirtation eventually became more serious, with Agnes admitting her feelings for Ernest in letters sent from a temporary posting in Florence. However, when the future bestseller returned to the United States, Agnes ended their relationship and the couple never saw each other again.

Hemingway never forgot Agnes, and would later immortalise her as the character of Catherine Barkley in one of his best-loved works, A Farewell to Arms. Their time together was also the subject of the 1996 film In Love and War starring Sandra Bullock and Chris O’Donnell.

3. Gertrude Stein was Hemingway’s son’s godmother

Along with his first wife, Hadley, Hemingway moved to Paris in 1921 to work as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star. Here, he ingratiated himself with prominent artists, such as Pablo Picasso and F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby.

Perhaps the most influential bond Hemingway made during this time was with the avante-garde writer Gertrude Stein, who hosted ‘literary salons’ at her apartment on Rue de Fleurus and acted as his mentor. Stein even became the godmother to Ernest’s son, Jack (whom he called ‘Bumby’).

4. Many of Hemingway’s early stories were stolen

While Hemingway was in Switzerland covering the 1922 Lausanne Peace Conference for the Toronto Star, his first wife, Hadley, boarded a train from Paris’ Gare de Lyon to visit him.

Thinking Ernest might show them to fellow journalist Lincoln Steffens at the conference, Hadley had packed the manuscripts of many of his early stories – including their carbon copies.

Once Hadley found her seat and stowed her suitcase, she left briefly to buy a bottle of water. But when she returned, the bag containing Hemingway’s stories was gone – never to be seen again.

5. Hemingway owned six-toed cats

The story goes that, while living in Key West, Florida, a local ship captain gave Hemingway a six-toed (polydactyl) kitten, which he named Snow White.

Descendants of this cat still live at the Hemingway House, which is now a museum. Around half of the 60 or so cats that roam the grounds today are polydactyl. You can see pictures of some of them on the Hemingway Home website.

Also at the Hemingway Home, visitors will find a urinal that Ernest reportedly took from his favourite bar, Sloppy Joe’s, after deciding he had “pissed away” enough of his money there. The urinal now stands in the garden, serving as a water bowl for the cats.

6. Hemingway shot himself trying to kill a shark

Fishing played a massive part in Hemingway’s life – as did injuries. One particularly unfortunate incident, when Ernest and his friends were fishing in the Gulf Stream in 1935, involved both.

While Hemingway’s companions were lifting a shark he’d caught onto the boat, the writer was standing by with his .22 Colt Woodsman ready to shoot it. However, when the giant fish jerked, the pistol accidentally went off, and Hemingway shot himself in both calves. For better or worse, he was fishing again a week later.

7. Hemingway hunted German U-boats during World War Two

During World War Two, the U.S. Navy asked civilian boat owners to look out for and report on any German U-boat activity in the Caribbean, where the enemy submarines were wreaking havoc on shipping vessels.

Hemingway, who was living in Cuba at the time, was keen to answer the call. However, always over-zealous for an adventure, the writer wasn’t content with simply spotting a U-boat. Instead, he wanted to lure one close and sink it.

With this in mind, Ernest gathered a crew, outfitted his beloved fishing boat (the Pilar) with grenades and submachine guns, and took to the high seas. While he did supposedly see one, Hemingway never got close enough to try out his reckless, hair-brained scheme, which many count as a blessing.

8. Hemingway once slapped a fellow author with a book

Tales of Hemingway’s penchant for brawling are often exaggerated – especially by the author himself. However, there’s plenty of truth behind them. For example, Ernest once slapped fellow author Max Eastman across the face with a book in their publisher Max Perkins’ office.

The attack was motivated by Eastman’s review of Hemingway’s bullfighting book, Death in the Afternoon, which describes Ernest’s literary style as “wearing false hair on the chest.” When Ernest saw the book with the review lying on Perkins’ desk, it was, to use an apt phrase, like a red rag to a bull.

A lesson for all writers: your words can literally come back to smack you in the face.

9. Hemingway was recruited as a spy for the KGB

In 2009, it was revealed that Hemingway was recruited as an agent of the KGB in 1941. The news came from a book called Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, which draws on information gathered from Moscow’s Stalin-era intelligence archives.

Working under the codename ‘Argo’, the book states that Ernest was enthusiastic to provide information to the Soviet Union but failed to offer up anything of much worth. As John Dugdale ponders in The Guardian:

“Was he only ever a pseudo-spook, possibly seeing his clandestine dealings as potential literary material, or a genuine but hopelessly ineffective one?”

10. Hemingway survived back-to-back plane crashes

In January 1954, during a trip to Africa, Ernest and his fourth wife Mary were admiring Uganda’s Murchison Falls from a Cessna when a flock of ibis rose in front of their plane. To evade the birds, the pilot (Roy Marsh) dived below them, clipping a telephone wire with the aircraft and sending it into a crash landing.

After a night spent in the bush, the trio spotted a boat passing on the river below and hitched a ride to a nearby town, where the Hemingways boarded another plane. However, in an astounding stroke of bad luck, just after take-off, this plane crashed, too, catching fire and trapping Ernest inside.

With his back, arm, and shoulder injured from the first crash, the writer had no choice but to headbutt the door to force it open. And while he cheated death once again, the ordeal added to Hemingway’s injuries – including head wounds that would affect him for the rest of his life.

11. Newspapers reported Hemingway’s death seven years before it happened

After Hemingway’s first plane crash in Africa, a commercial airliner sighted the wreckage of their Cessna but reported no signs of life. This prompted newspapers to erroneously report his death, which wouldn’t arrive until seven years later in 1961.

Despite his serious injuries, Hemingway apparently emerged from the bush in a good mood. As TIME reported, “he walked out of the jungle carrying a bunch of bananas and a bottle of gin, and was quoted, possibly even correctly, as saying: ‘My luck, she is running very good.’”

12. Hemingway experimented with gender fluidity

Between his penchant for bar-room brawls and his love of big game hunting, Hemingway was considered an archetype of manliness in his day. As attitudes have progressed, this exaggerated masculinity has often been labelled as toxic.

However, the he-man persona wasn’t all there was to the writer. As biographer Mary Dearborn says, Hemingway and his fourth wife sometimes switched gender roles in the bedroom, with Ernest going by the name ‘Catherine’ and Mary by the name ‘Pete’. Hemingway also wrote about gender fluidity in his posthumously published novel The Garden of Eden.

You can read more about this in Esquire’s article: Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Androgyny.

13. Hemingway committed suicide at 61

On Sunday 2nd of July, 1961, Ernest Hemingway woke up, unlocked his favourite shotgun from the gun cabinet, and sadly ended his life at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.

Originally reported as an accident, the incident is thought to have been brought on by the author’s depression, paranoia, and bipolar disorder. These mental health issues were made significantly worse by years of heavy drinking, hemochromatosis (a genetic iron disorder which can cause tiredness and memory loss), and many head injuries – including at least nine concussions.

Sadly, many of Hemingway’s family also committed suicide – including his father, brother, sister, and granddaughter, the model Margaux Hemingway.

14. There’s a Hemingway lookalike contest held every year in Florida

Every year, Sloppy Joe’s bar in Key West hosts a lookalike contest in Hemingway’s honour. According to the bar’s website, “participants from around the world don their best Hemingway-esque attire and compete to be named ‘Papa.’” ‘Papa’ was Ernest’s self-appointed nickname, used by many of his close friends.

The contest isn’t just judged on the contestants’ physical resemblance to the writer, but on how they embody his “spirit and zest for life”. Hemingway’s brother, Leicester, judged the inaugural contest in 1981. You can check out the past winners here.

15. Hemingway didn’t write the famous six-word story

As legend has it, Hemingway was drinking with friends one night when he bet them he could write an entire story in just six words. Once the bets were placed, Hemingway took up a napkin and scribbled: “For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn.”

It’s an interesting tale that captures Hemingway’s talented but showboating nature and his penchant for literary brevity. However, scholars have dismissed it as nothing more than an urban legend – with there being no evidence that he wrote the tiny tale.

Final thoughts…

Between his reputation as a bully and his love of blood sports like bullfighting and big game hunting, Ernest Hemingway is a controversial figure – especially by today’s standards.

However, Hemingway also suffered terrible tragedies and wrote some of the most poignant and enduring passages of literature in history. And it’s because of these conflicts and complications – not just his swashbuckling lifestyle – that people are still fascinated by him more than 60 years after his death.

For more fascinating facts about history’s greatest authors, head over to our books and literature section. As well as learning more about writers like Jane Austen and Edgar Allan Poe, you can also read interviews with contemporary bestsellers like Tessa Hadley and Kate Mosse.

What’s your favourite Hemingway fact? Did we list it here? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.