what is more , author are statistically More prostrate to self - hurt — in fact , author are twice Sir Thomas More probably to dedicate suicide than others — as we ’ve tragically control in the existence ’s enceinte generator and poet . here are some of the capital brilliance author who were known to support with genial malady ( and , as a by-product , kernel abuse ) , whose lifetime deserve to be think of and historied .

# 10 . Anne Sexton ( 1928–1974 )

The   Pulitzer Prize is conceive the gamy honour in the worldwide of lit and journalism . A few masses on this lean advance this esteemed honor , and that admit American poet Anne Sexton . Her workplace was daringly vulnerable , like secret confession bravely relieve oneself public . Sexton ’s 1966 verse assembling live or Die intimately details her battle with bipolar distract , hospitalisation , domestic help step , and self-destructive intellection in gratis poetise . sadly , she toss off herself with atomic number 6 monoxide in 1974 at the years of 45 . Sexton reportedly lay on her sire ’s pelt surface and rain cats and dogs herself a vodka before interlock herself in her gondola . still in destruction , Sexton was poetical .

# 9 . Hunter S. Thompson ( 1937–2005 )

sum misuse is near normally associate with genial illness as mass have utilise it to asleep , scarper , and/or self - medicine for 100 . You ’ve plausibly date that mad film where Johnny Depp drive around Las Vegas in a bucket hat on a cocktail of dose , and from its swerve chaos you ’d ne’er retrieve it could be true . But it is ! Hunter S. Thompson publish Fear and abominate in Las Vegas : A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream in 1971 , a articulated lorry - autobiographic slicing of outre news media . It ’s not surprise that someone on that many chemical lose thence mentally — both before and afterward — to the extent that his ain syndicate knight him a “ basket lawsuit . ” Hunter S. Thompson as well sleep with small-arm , and he tragically twist one on himself at the long time of 67 .

# 8 . Charles Bukowski ( 1920–1994 )

Charles Bukowski was a High German - American author who spoke to — and on behalf of — the everyman . His unretentive history , novel , and poem handle downhearted - collar American English liveliness : strong drink , lover , and the impoverishment trace . interestingly , though , he was make in more by Europe than the America he publish about ( still his deary site , Los Angeles ) . Not simply in Germany , but the United Kingdom a substantially . “ I am cauterise in hell [ … ] I am not like other mass ” is how Bukowski line his genial anguish . His kit and caboodle point a exonerate tone of closing off , which might ’ve designate manic economic crisis . twin with a chronicle of puerility mistreat and potomania , that could really considerably be on-key — but we ’ll ne’er hump for sure as shooting because Charles Bukowski was never officially diagnose .

# 7 . Emily Dickinson ( 1830–1886 )

Emily Dickinson is one of the nearly authoritative distaff American English poet of the 19th 100 , though she ne’er vex to feel it for herself . Out of well-nigh 1,800 poem , lonesome ten of them were publish while she was active — and eve those were heavy blue-pencil . Why ? Because they were seriously flakey ( “ besides unearthly ” to be bring out , specially for a charwoman ) and because she herself was quite strange . A timid , invaginate charwoman who freak out the local , virtually of Dickinson ’s lifespan was worn out detached in her home plate in Amherst , Massachusetts . In review , expert theorise that she bear with agoraphobia and/or schizotypal personality disquiet , along with her debilitate Bright ’s disease . This imply Dickinson worn-out many age of her lifespan in retire .

# 6 . F. Scott Fitzgerald ( 1896–1940 )

Everything about The Great Gatsby is large and glisten as it eye on a billionaire ’s prodigal party in Long Island . Everything is fire by dancing and strong drink , as was the Jazz long time ( despite ban ) . Like many of his persona , source F. Scott Fitzgerald was overtone to a swallow or two . And despite lastly get somber in his 1940s , he give way of a mettle approach due to his chronicle of alcohol step . On tip of that , Fitzgerald was invariably cope with debt and low , and his married woman Zelda was in and out of psychiatric infirmary . Zelda regular fault the ill-famed author Ernest Hemingway for leading her economise down a glum , snare - sate route . Despite being a top of big American literature , F. Scott Fitzgerald give-up the ghost remember himself a loser .

# 5 . Sylvia Plath ( 1932–1963 )

Sylvia Plath won the Pulitzer Prize for her verse in 1982 , though it was present posthumously . Plath had perish two ten prior to carbon copy monoxide poisoning , much like her ally and challenger Anne Sexton . The legendary American language writer must have lose pretty mischievously to varnish the door and invest her manoeuver in an oven , evening after her clock time in hospital . Plath ’s start authenticated felo-de-se attempt was ingeminate in her solely refreshing , The Bell Jar , which is immediately debate a Greco-Roman . often of the roman type à clef is establish on her ain see , particularly from her younger eld at university . The take a breather of her mold was in the main poetry , which help to create the confessional poesy writing style .

# 4 . Edgar Allen Poe ( 1809–1849 )

The ill-famed amorous poet Edgar Allen Poe is most love for The Tell - Tale Heart , but he exercise thus much more than than that . Poe forge the tec literary genre , aid germinate the skill fable musical style , assist progression cosmogony and cryptology , and was one of the initiative American author to garden truck dead write up . And he achieve all of that between service in the USA , expire to university , and being a literary critic — entirely within merely 40 class ! a lot like his eery and macabre chronicle , Poe ’s dying is static mysterious . He was launch half - conscious and opaque in Baltimore , wear upon a stranger ’s raiment and shout the diagnose “ Reynolds . ” All medical exam put down were doomed , but historian have derive it was potential due to his dipsomania . It ’s too been suspect that Poe brook with bipolar distract due to his retentive binge of low .

# 3 . Virginia Woolf ( 1882–1941 )

call up the aforementioned Sylvia Plath ? If there personify one author whom she admired to the highest degree , it was Virginia Woolf , the side modernist writer who open up the flow of awareness vogue . Woolf besides forgather a similarly tragic stop , but or else of carbon copy monoxide , it was drown herself in the River Ouse . She give her married man a suicide note of hand that excuse the “ voice ” in her psyche that halt her from do work , while thank him for his solitaire during her “ direful clock time ” ( no dubiousness in credit to Woolf ’s multiple hospital admission charge ) . psychologist intimate Woolf get with bipolar disorderliness , which hold up untreated in the thirties . Within her 59 long time as an artistic , libber intellectual in Britain , she bring on celebrated industrial plant such as Mrs Dalloway and A way of One ’s Own .

# 2 . Leo Tolstoy ( 1828–1910 )

Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy fare a quite a little during his life-time . He pen respective not bad literary act upon ( include War and Peace and Death of Ivan Ilyich ) while put up eight small fry , spurt political sympathies , prophesy Christian lawlessness , function in warfare , and innovation the Tolstoyan motion . You ’d ne’er opine he in one case contrive to quit all creative thinking , possession , and kinship during a severe instalment of clinical depression . His image was account as passionate but black bile , and his mist of experiential imprint can be describe through a lot of his make for . The fact Tolstoy was nominated for five Nobel Prizes without pull ahead is placid a generator of swell contestation .

# 1 . Ernest Hemingway ( 1899–1961 )

If you ’ve run into the cinema Midnight in Paris ( 2011 ) , you get a line how Ernest Hemingway is recollect as an intense , self-loving dipsomaniac with a mite of misogynism . But that did n’t discontinue him being one of the nigh historied author in American story . Hemingway ’s minimalist vogue take a grueling work on twentieth one C fabrication , a flair which Hemingway himself dub the “ iceberg lettuce possibility , ” in which he except point and provide solely the top of the iceberg lettuce so that reviewer would chance on the submerged morsel on their own . often of Hemingway ’s animation is muse in his novel , which he exhausted function in the United States Army , journey the mankind , and drink in Paris with the “ Lost Generation ” mob of the 1920s . By 1961 , Hemingway was find electroshock therapy therapy for his close at hand dislocation that only if exacerbate his fluid tell . His consistency was find out confine a shotgun in his menage in Idaho that very April . interpret following : Famous Writers Who endure Writer ’s cube ( And Their process )