Ernest Hemingway

He was six feet tall, huge-chested, handsome, ebullient, a warrior, a hunter, a fisherman, a drinker.'' Ernest Hemingway was ''a man who lived it up to write it down'' and his life became the root from which his novels grew. At the age of 18 he was awarded a medal for bravery in the First World War; he honed his craft in 1920s Paris, amongst the ''Lost Generation'': F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and John Dos Passos; his macho image grew with his love of big-game hunting, deep-sea fishing and bull-fighting. And the philosophy of heroism that increasingly pervaded his books and his life was cemented during the Spanish Civil War, where he survived the bombardment of Madrid and was present at the Republicans'' last stand at Ebro. But, by the 1940s, the darkness of his alcoholism (three bottles of Valpolicella for breakfast), violent rages and the bad luck of loving many women began to weigh heavily. Although he was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery under fire whilst covering