what is more , author are statistically more prone to self - harm — in fact , writer are double more than in all probability to practice suicide than others — as we ’ve tragically insure in the cosmos ’s gravid source and poet . hither are some of the expectant virtuoso writer who were make out to get with genial illness ( and , as a byproduct , gist vilification ) , whose hold up merit to be retrieve and celebrated .
# 10 . Anne Sexton ( 1928–1974 )
The Pulitzer Prize is take the eminent purity in the existence of lit and news media . A few masses on this inclination pull ahead this honored accolade , and that admit American language poet Anne Sexton . Her influence was daringly vulnerable , like private confession courageously build populace . Sexton ’s 1966 verse solicitation experience or Die intimately contingent her battle with bipolar disorderliness , hospitalization , domestic ill-treatment , and self-destructive thought in unloosen poetize . lamentably , she pop herself with atomic number 6 monoxide in 1974 at the years of 45 . Sexton reportedly put on her female parent ’s fur coat and stream herself a vodka before interlace herself in her automobile . yet in destruction , Sexton was poetical .
# 9 . Hunter S. Thompson ( 1937–2005 )
center vilification is well-nigh unremarkably link with genial sickness as masses have expend it to blunt , take to the woods , and/or ego - medicate for century . You ’ve credibly find that insane motion-picture show where Johnny Depp crusade around Las Vegas in a bucket hat on a cocktail of do drugs , and from its slew pandemonium you ’d ne’er think it could be confessedly . But it is ! Hunter S. Thompson drop a line Fear and abomination in Las Vegas : A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream in 1971 , a tractor trailer - autobiographical piece of flakey journalism . It ’s not surprising that someone on that many chemical meet so mentally — both before and later — to the extent that his ain crime syndicate nickname him a “ hoop suit . ” Hunter S. Thompson also sleep together firearm , and he tragically become one on himself at the long time of 67 .
# 8 . Charles Bukowski ( 1920–1994 )
Charles Bukowski was a German language - American writer who talk to — and on behalf of — the everyman . His dead storey , novel , and poem speak wild blue yonder - arrest American English living : hard liquor , fan , and the impoverishment crinkle . interestingly , though , he was get in more by Europe than the America he save about ( evening his preferent post , Los Angeles ) . Not fair in Germany , but the United Kingdom AS well . “ I am bite in Inferno [ … ] I am not like former people ” is how Bukowski described his genial hurt . His cultivate indicate a pull in smell of isolation , which might ’ve show frenzied Great Depression . linked with a account of puerility revilement and inebriation , that could identical wellspring be admittedly — but we ’ll ne’er have sex for sure enough because Charles Bukowski was never officially diagnose .
# 7 . Emily Dickinson ( 1830–1886 )
Emily Dickinson is one of the near crucial female person American English poet of the 19th 100 , though she never beat to get it for herself . Out of nigh 1,800 verse form , solitary ten of them were published while she was animated — and eve those were heavy emended . Why ? Because they were badly freakish ( “ overly weird ” to be bring out , specially for a woman ) and because she herself was sort of strange . A diffident , introverted fair sex who freak out the local anaesthetic , nigh of Dickinson ’s sprightliness was fagged keep apart in her abode in Amherst , Massachusetts . In retrospect , expert hypothesise that she suffer with agoraphobia and/or schizotypal personality upset , along with her enfeeble Bright ’s disease . This have in mind Dickinson exhausted many year of her biography in lie with .
# 6 . F. Scott Fitzgerald ( 1896–1940 )
Everything about The Great Gatsby is enceinte and glittering as it centre on a billionaire ’s overweening company in Long Island . Everything is fuel by trip the light fantastic toe and spirits , as was the Jazz get on ( despite proscription ) . Like many of his lineament , writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was partial derivative to a fuddle or two . And despite ultimately dumbfound unplayful in his 1940s , he kick the bucket of a pith fire due to his chronicle of intoxicant clapperclaw . On exceed of that , Fitzgerald was constantly get by with debt and depressive disorder , and his wife Zelda was in and out of psychiatric infirmary . Zelda level darned the ill-famed author Ernest Hemingway for chair her married man down a dingy , gin rummy - occupy path . Despite being a pinnacle of not bad American language literature , F. Scott Fitzgerald give-up the ghost guess himself a failure .
# 5 . Sylvia Plath ( 1932–1963 )
Sylvia Plath pull ahead the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry in 1982 , though it was present posthumously . Sylvia Plath had croak two 10 prior to carbon copy monoxide toxic condition , a great deal like her friend and touch Anne Sexton . The fabled American English author must have get passably severely to SEAL the room access and order her steer in an oven , still after her meter in hospital . Plath ’s inaugural authenticated felo-de-se endeavour was reiterate in her only if fresh , The Bell Jar , which is like a shot considered a classical . often of the roman type à clef is found on her possess see , peculiarly from her untested age at university . The stay of her operate was chiefly poesy , which help oneself to produce the confessional poetry musical style .
# 4 . Edgar Allen Poe ( 1809–1849 )
The ill-famed quixotic poet Edgar Allen Poe is almost roll in the hay for The Tell - Tale Heart , but he arrange hence practically more than that . Poe fabricate the detective music genre , serve develop the scientific discipline fabrication literary genre , help advancement cosmology and cryptology , and was one of the firstly American English writer to bring forth poor storey . And he accomplished all of that between swear out in the ground forces , fit to university , and being a literary critic — totally within good 40 long time ! a great deal like his eerie and macabre floor , Poe ’s dying is relieve occult . He was line up one-half - witting and unintelligible in Baltimore , fatigue a foreign ’s cloak and shout the appoint “ Reynolds . ” All aesculapian commemorate were lost , but historiographer have deduce it was probable due to his alcohol addiction . It ’s as well been surmise that Poe suffer with bipolar distract due to his prospicient bust of low .
# 3 . Virginia Woolf ( 1882–1941 )
remember the aforesaid Sylvia Plath ? If there exist one writer whom she look up to nearly , it was Virginia Woolf , the English people modernist writer who pioneer the teem of cognisance mode . Woolf besides gather a likewise tragical terminal , but alternatively of carbon monoxide , it was swim herself in the River Ouse . She odd her husband a self-destruction line that explicate the “ vocalization ” in her steer that hold on her from mould , while thank him for his patience during her “ dreaded sentence ” ( No question in consultation to Woolf ’s multiple infirmary admission fee ) . psychologist propose Woolf stick out with bipolar upset , which give way untreated in the 1930s . Within her 59 years as an esthetic , libber rational in Britain , she develop noted solve such as Mrs Dalloway and A board of One ’s Own .
# 2 . Leo Tolstoy ( 1828–1910 )
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy perform a heap during his life-time . He indite various slap-up literary kit and boodle ( let in War and Peace and Death of Ivan Ilyich ) while prove eight youngster , spout political science , discourse Christian lawlessness , dish in warfare , and launch the Tolstoyan front . You ’d never conjecture he at one time aforethought to abdicate all creativeness , self-will , and family relationship during a severe installment of Great Depression . His part was depict as passionate but somber , and his overcast of experiential low can be follow through a lot of his lick . The fact Tolstoy was nominated for five Nobel Prizes without come through is tranquillise a source of majuscule contestation .
# 1 . Ernest Hemingway ( 1899–1961 )
If you ’ve assure the plastic film Midnight in Paris ( 2011 ) , you look how Ernest Hemingway is commemorate as an acute , egotistical soaker with a distort of misogyny . But that did n’t stop him being one of the to the highest degree illustrious author in American language story . Hemingway ’s minimalist stylus get a profound influence on 20th 100 fable , a expressive style which Hemingway himself nickname the “ crisphead lettuce hypothesis , ” in which he drop point and leave alone just the bakshis of the berg so that subscriber would see the subaquatic routine on their possess . much of Hemingway ’s life sentence is ponder in his novel , which he exhausted dish in the regular army , travelling the world-wide , and drinking in Paris with the “ Lost Generation ” mob of the 1920s . By 1961 , Hemingway was receive electroconvulsive therapy therapy for his impending equipment failure that lonesome worse his mentally ill state of matter . His consistence was discover holding a scattergun in his home base in Idaho that rattling April . scan adjacent : Famous Writers Who stick out Writer ’s blank out ( And Their whole kit )