Synopses & Reviews
The first major biography of legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn casts "a vivid spotlight on one of the most undercelebrated women of the 20th century" (
Entertainment Weekly).
Martha Gellhorn's heroic career as a reporter brought her to the front lines of virtually every significant international conflict between the Spanish Civil War and the end of the cold war; her wartime dispatches rank among the best of the century. From her birth in St. Louis in 1908 to her death in London in 1998, the tall, glamorous blonde passed through Africa, Cuba, Panama, and most of the great cities of Europe. She made friends easily among them Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, and H. G. Wells but happiness often eluded her despite her professional success: both of her marriages ended badly, the first, to Ernest Hemingway, dramatically and publicly so.
Drawn from extensive interviews and exclusive access to Gellhorn's papers and correspondence, this seminal biography spans half the globe and almost an entire century to offer an exhilarating, intimate portrait of one of the defining women of our times.
Review
"Not blind to the faults of her subject...Moorehead displays Gellhorn's saving grace: unflinching candor. How can one not admire a woman who confessed to her notebook that writing 'is the only thing which does not bore or dismay me'?" New York Times Book Review
Review
"[Moorehead gives] us not just the usual account of the career and the public person but an intimate look at the private person." The Washington Post Book World
Review
"[A] vivid, balanced and fascinating portrait of a 'woman who was oddly deaf to the intonations of feminism,' and yet who paid a price for her independent spirit." Publishers Weekly
Review
"A grand journalist and feminist emerges from Papa's shadow in this high-toned but oh-so-juicy life....A tough woman and marvelous writer gets her due." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Moorehead's reclamation of Gellhorn's eventful, glamorous, and significant life is a great boon...and her well-honed insights into the acute emotional toll Gellhorn paid for her courageous devotion...are deeply moving." Booklist
Review
"Imagine a cross between Dorothies Parker and Thompson in the body of Katharine Hepburn and you have an approximation of Martha Gellhorn, a woman who never met a war zone, a culture, a male ego, or an exercise routine from which she shied. Caroline Moorehead has resurrected her beautifully in this vivid and seamless biography." Stacy Schiff, author of Saint-Exupery: A Biography
Review
"In an engrossing 424-page biography, Caroline Moorehead vividly re-creates Gellhorn as a writer of acute perception..." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Review
"[I]ncredibly comprehensive..." Library Journal
Review
"Gellhorn, in her bravery and refusal to take pity on herself, had noble traits, but she was undeniably flawed. This sort of biography, pitiless in its truth telling and beautifully written, does real justice to the heroically flawed Martha Gellhorn." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Moorehead's Gellhorn is the study of a fascinating woman, so how could it fail to be fascinating too? Indeed, it often is....But after finishing this biography, readers should seek out the source Gellhorn's work which tells us even more." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Like many literary biographies, this one is perhaps a hundred pages too long....This new biography is a welcome reminder of her importance, but it would be even better if some publisher brought out a collection of Gellhorn's best journalism for a new generation." Detroit Free Press
Review
"[E]xhaustive, engaging....In the end, this textured, intimate biography does much to lift Hemingway's shadow from a writer who gave readers a fascinating glimpse of world events and ourselves." South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Review
"[A] long-overdue chronicle of one of the most daring wartime journalists female or male of all time....The biography serves as a moving testimony to both the writer's talent and her courage on and off the battlefield." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Synopsis
The first major biography of legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn casts "a vivid spotlight on one of the most undercelebrated women of the 20th century" (Entertainment Weekly)Martha Gellhorn's heroic career as a reporter brought her to the front lines of virtually every significant international conflict between the Spanish Civil War and the end of the cold war; her wartime dispatches rank among the best of the century. From her birth in St. Louis in 1908 to her death in London in 1998, the tall, glamorous blonde passed through Africa, Cuba, Panama, and most of the great cities of Europe. She made friends easily-among them Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, and H. G. Wells-but happiness often eluded her despite her professional success: both of her marriages ended badly, the first, to Ernest Hemingway, dramatically and publicly so.
Drawn from extensive interviews and exclusive access to Gellhorn's papers and correspondence, this seminal biography spans half the globe and almost an entire century to offer an exhilarating, intimate portrait of one of the defining women of our times.
About the Author
Caroline Moorehead is a distinguished biographer, book reviewer, and journalist. Gellhorn was nominated for the Whitbread Award for Biography and named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly and the San Francisco Chronicle. Moorehead will edit a collection of Gellhorn's letters and is also writing a book about the international refugee crisis, both for Henry Holt. She lives in London.
Table of Contents
Preface 1
1 A Talking Childhood 11
2 In Search of a Hero 30
3 A Little Hungry for a Long Time 43
4 The Trees Don't Grow Tall Enough 72
5 To War with the Boys 102
6 Only Kind People Should Be Kind 129
7 Flint and Steel 155
8 The Last Toughness of Youth 182
9 An Honorable Profession 203
10 The Pale Empty Color of the Future 231
11 Nothing with Mirrors 264
12 The Habit of Living 291
13 The Capital of My Soul 320
14 Stones on the Heart 345
15 I Act, Therefore I Am 380
16 The Sin of Unhappiness 400
Sources and Select Bibliography 425
Acknowledgments 437
Books by Martha Gellhorn 441
Index 443