Gellhorn

A Twentieth-Century Life

Caroline Moorehead

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780805065534
• eBook ISBN: 9781429900720
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: Literature

The first major biography of legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, whose life provides a unique and thrilling perspective on world history in an extraordinary time
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. The preeminent-and often the only-female correspondent on the scene, she broke new ground for women in the male preserve of journalism. Her wartime dispatches, marked by a passionate desire to expose suffering in its many guises and an inimitable immediacy, rank among the best of the twentieth century.
A deep-seated love of travel complemented this interest in world affairs. From her birth in St. Louis in 1908 to her death in London in 1998, Gellhorn passed through Africa, Cuba, China, and most of the great cities of Europe, recording her experiences in first-rate travel writing and fiction. A tall, glamorous blonde, she made friends easily-among the boldface names that populated her life were Eleanor Roosevelt, Leonard Bernstein, and H. G. Wells-but she was as incapable of settling into comfortable long-term relationships as she was of sitting still, and happiness often eluded her despite her professional success. Both of her marriages ended badly-the first, to Ernest Hemingway, publicly so.
Drawn from extensive interviews and with 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.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• One. A Talking Childhood
• Two. In Search of a Hero
• Three. A Little Hungry for a Long Time
• Four. The Trees Don’t Grow Tall Enough
• Five. To War with the Boys
• Six. Only Kind People Should Be Kind
• Seven. Flint and Steel
• Eight. The Last Toughness of Youth
• Nine. An Honorable Profession
• Ten. The Pale Empty Color of the Future
• Eleven. Nothing with Mirrors
• Twelve. The Habit of Living
• Thirteen. The Capital of My Soul
• Fourteen. Stones on the Heart
• Fifteen. I Act, Therefore I Am
• Sixteen. The Sin of Unhappiness
• Sources and Select Bibliography
• Acknowledgments
• Books by Martha Gellhorn
• Index
• About the Author