Today in literary history: July 2

Here's what happened on July 2 in literary history.

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Author Ernest Hemingway died on this day in 1961.

The original New York Times article reporting Hemingway's death is accessible for free online; it concludes with then-President John F. Kennedy Jr. mourning his death, calling him one of America's greatest authors and "one of the great citizens of the world."

Hemingway's death was first reported as accidental and taking place while he cleaned his gun, but it was later ruled a suicide.
B. Andrew Farah, M.D., a forensic psychiatrist, spent nearly two decades studying Hemingway's medical history and addressed his health in a book titled Hemingway’s Brain.

Farah noted that Hemingway suffered a number of head injuries throughout his life: in car and plane crashes, boxing matches, football games, and other incidents, and had, right before his death, just received treatment for severe depression and psychosis.

Other symptoms he displayed throughout his life align with what we now know as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), bipolar disorder, and narcissistic personality. (And his lifestyle choices, like binge drinking, didn't help matters.)

Additionally, Hemingway's father died by suicide, as did his sister Ursula and brother Leicester, and many of his literary friends (James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Hart Crane) exhibited less-than-healthy behaviors.

Hemingway's granddaughter Margaux would also die by suicide, of course many years after her grandfather's death.

Sources: The New York Times, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, American Mental Health Foundation

NOTE: If you're having thoughts of suicide, resources are available, including the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which has options for calling, texting, chatting, and communicating as a deaf or hard-of-hearing person.

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Author Vladimir Nabokov died on this day in 1977.

Nabokov, like many writers, died with notes for another work; also like many writers, he told his literary heir — in his case, his wife, Véra, who also famously served as his typist, editor, and literary agent — to burn them.

Véra Nabokov instead kept the index cards in a Swiss bank vault for the rest of her life, passing the eventual responsibility for them to their son, Dmitri.

Dmitri Nabokov announced in 2008 that the book would be published and released The Original of Laura the following year, but in a decidedly unusual format — "a novel in fragments" according to the publishers, an "embryonic masterpiece" according to the son.

What does that mean? It means that the book reprinted Vladimir Nabokov's 138 notecards with their text typed below, and in the print versions, it added perforation around the notecards so that readers could detach and rearrange them.

Sources: Encyclopedia Britannica, The Guardian, The Conversation

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Sense a theme? Author Mario Puzo died on this day in 1999.

Puzo will forever be associated with the Mafia, thanks to his smash hit novel The Godfather and its sequels — and film adaptations.

But did you know ...

• Puzo didn't originally want to write about the Mafia, but his previous novels hadn't earned him much money, and his debts were mounting. So when his editors suggested it — and when his eventual outline for such a novel was offered a $5,000 advance — he agreed.

• Puzo never met an actual gangster, insisting that his research was done in libraries, and channeled the spirit of his mother for the voice of Vito Corleone — "her wisdom, her ruthlessness, and her unconquerable love for her family and for life itself," in his words.

• Puzo added notes in the movie screenplay draft on how to incorporate the line "I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse" because he was confident (and correct) that it would become iconic.

• The word Mafia never appears in the movie The Godfather; one source credits this to objections from Italian-American cultural organizations, while another points to an actual mob boss.

Sources: CBS News, The Mob Museum, The Independent, Collider