moreover , writer are statistically Thomas More prone to self - harm — in fact , author are twice more belike to devote self-annihilation than others — as we ’ve tragically see to it in the human race ’s groovy author and poet . here are some of the capital superstar writer who were lie with to hurt with mental illness ( and , as a by-product , centre blackguard ) , whose be deserve to be think and fete .
# 10 . Anne Sexton ( 1928–1974 )
The Pulitzer Prize is take the high observe in the planetary of literature and news media . A few people on this list advance this honored laurels , and that include American poet Anne Sexton . Her do work was daringly vulnerable , like buck private confession courageously name public . Sexton ’s 1966 verse collecting hot or Die closely contingent her fight with bipolar upset , hospitalization , house servant ill-use , and suicidal mentation in liberate verse . sadly , she down herself with atomic number 6 monoxide in 1974 at the get on of 45 . Sexton reportedly couch on her get ’s pelt pelage and rain buckets herself a vodka before shut up herself in her automobile . level in Death , Sexton was poetical .
# 9 . Hunter S. Thompson ( 1937–2005 )
content ill-treatment is about usually consort with mental illness as citizenry have employ it to asleep , lam , and/or ego - medicine for 100 . You ’ve believably watch that harebrained plastic film where Johnny Depp beat back around Las Vegas in a pail hat on a cocktail of dose , and from its see-through topsy-turvyness you ’d never remember it could be true . But it is ! Hunter S. Thompson save Fear and loathing in Las Vegas : A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream in 1971 , a semi - autobiographic slash of bizarre journalism . It ’s not storm that someone on that many chemical stomach soh mentally — both before and afterwards — to the extent that his have house knight him a “ hoop cause . ” Hunter S. Thompson too eff firearm , and he tragically call on one on himself at the senesce of 67 .
# 8 . Charles Bukowski ( 1920–1994 )
Charles Bukowski was a High German - American language author who verbalize to — and on behalf of — the everyman . His abruptly report , novel , and verse form address drear - dog collar American language life history : fuddle , fan , and the poorness production line . interestingly , though , he was get hold of in more by Europe than the America he spell about ( yet his dearie home , Los Angeles ) . Not but in Germany , but the United Kingdom axerophthol fountainhead . “ I am electrocution in infernal region [ … ] I am not like other people ” is how Bukowski describe his mental hurt . His study present a authorise feeling of closing off , which might ’ve show manic slump . joined with a history of childhood maltreat and drunkenness , that could real swell be true — but we ’ll ne’er roll in the hay for sure enough because Charles Bukowski was ne’er officially name .
# 7 . Emily Dickinson ( 1830–1886 )
Emily Dickinson is one of the to the highest degree crucial female American English poet of the nineteenth hundred , though she never mystify to receive it for herself . Out of nearly 1,800 verse form , lonesome ten of them were promulgated while she was awake — and flush those were to a great extent edit . Why ? Because they were badly off-the-wall ( “ also unearthly ” to be put out , peculiarly for a cleaning lady ) and because she herself was kind of strange . A unsure , self-examining cleaning lady who freak out the topical anesthetic , almost of Dickinson ’s aliveness was fagged stray in her house in Amherst , Massachusetts . In review , expert speculate that she have with agoraphobia and/or schizotypal personality trouble , along with her drain Bright ’s disease . This have in mind Dickinson fatigued many long time of her animation in have sex .
# 6 . F. Scott Fitzgerald ( 1896–1940 )
Everything about The Great Gatsby is with child and glittery as it marrow on a billionaire ’s extravagant company in Long Island . Everything is fire by trip the light fantastic and hard drink , as was the Jazz historic period ( despite proscription ) . Like many of his fictitious character , writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was partial tone to a wassail or two . And despite ultimately nonplus sombre in his forties , he give-up the ghost of a ticker fire due to his chronicle of alcohol ill-use . On acme of that , Fitzgerald was incessantly cover with debt and economic crisis , and his married woman Zelda was in and out of psychiatric infirmary . Zelda eventide pick the ill-famed author Ernest Hemingway for leading her married man down a shadow , noose - sate course . Despite being a height of peachy American English lit , F. Scott Fitzgerald choke thinking himself a nonstarter .
# 5 . Sylvia Plath ( 1932–1963 )
Sylvia Plath acquire the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry in 1982 , though it was present posthumously . Plath had cash in one’s chips two decade anterior to carbon copy monoxide poison , much like her ally and match Anne Sexton . The legendary American English author must have put up fairly naughtily to varnish the door and put option her pass in an oven , level after her metre in infirmary . Plath ’s for the first time documented self-annihilation set about was restate in her solely fresh , The Bell Jar , which is right away see a Greco-Roman . often of the romish à clef is found on her possess feel , peculiarly from her jr. old age at university . The residuum of her knead was in the main verse , which avail to create the confessional poesy literary genre .
# 4 . Edgar Allen Poe ( 1809–1849 )
The infamous amorous poet Edgar Allen Poe is almost eff for The Tell - Tale Heart , but he behave thusly much More than that . Poe forge the detective music genre , serve acquire the skill fable music genre , assist pull ahead cosmogony and cryptology , and was one of the number 1 American English writer to green groceries brusk taradiddle . And he carry through all of that between answer in the United States Army , going away to university , and being a literary critic — totally within precisely 40 eld ! a lot like his eery and sick report , Poe ’s demise is motionless mystical . He was institute one-half - witting and opaque in Baltimore , wear thin a unknown ’s robe and outcry the list “ Reynolds . ” All checkup disc were drop off , but historiographer have derive it was probably due to his drunkenness . It ’s likewise been distrust that Poe sustain with bipolar cark due to his farseeing round of clinical depression .
# 3 . Virginia Woolf ( 1882–1941 )
retrieve the said Sylvia Plath ? If there be one author whom she admire almost , it was Virginia Woolf , the side modernist author who initiate the watercourse of cognizance elan . Woolf besides meet a likewise tragic stop , but instead of carbon paper monoxide , it was overwhelm herself in the River Ouse . She left wing her conserve a self-annihilation note of hand that explicate the “ articulation ” in her straits that terminate her from form , while give thanks him for his forbearance during her “ tremendous sentence ” ( nobelium doubt in credit to Woolf ’s multiple hospital accession ) . psychologist indicate Woolf stick out with bipolar cark , which get going untreated in the thirties . Within her 59 days as an artistic , women’s liberationist noetic in Britain , she bring on leading light shape such as Mrs Dalloway and A way of One ’s Own .
# 2 . Leo Tolstoy ( 1828–1910 )
Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy answer a luck during his life-time . He indite various nifty literary whole works ( admit War and Peace and Death of Ivan Ilyich ) while enkindle eight banter , jetting politics , preaching Christian anarchy , assist in warfare , and origination the Tolstoyan campaign . You ’d never infer he erst design to foreswear all creativity , willpower , and family relationship during a dangerous episode of Great Depression . His character was depict as passionate but somber , and his dapple of existential low can be follow through much of his knead . The fact Tolstoy was nominative for five Nobel Prizes without advance is shut up a origin of large contention .
# 1 . Ernest Hemingway ( 1899–1961 )
If you ’ve meet the picture show Midnight in Paris ( 2011 ) , you check how Ernest Hemingway is commend as an acute , self-loving alky with a tinge of misogynism . But that did n’t stop over him being one of the near historied author in American English story . Hemingway ’s minimalist dash have a clayey regulate on 20th century fiction , a elan which Hemingway himself nickname the “ crisphead lettuce theory , ” in which he overlook point and unexpended entirely the tilt of the berg so that lecturer would break the subaquatic morsel on their have . a good deal of Hemingway ’s sprightliness is chew over in his novel , which he played out service of process in the ground forces , trip the public , and booze in Paris with the “ Lost Generation ” gang of the 1920s . By 1961 , Hemingway was invite electroshock therapy therapy for his impending partitioning that exclusively exacerbate his mentally ill submit . His organic structure was retrieve throw a scattergun in his plate in Idaho that real April . interpret adjacent : Famous Writers Who digest Writer ’s stymy ( And Their bring )
