Hemingway was a really troubled man who suffered from depression, bipolarity and other various personality disorders. He wrote the masterpieces ‘The old man and the sea’ and ‘For whom the bell tolls’. Suicidal thoughts were something common for Hemingway family since Ernest’s father, his sister Ursula, his brother Leicester and granddaughter Mariel also committed suicide. He killed himself with a shotgun in 1961.

Wallace suffered from crippling depression his entire life and only the use of medication helped him in being able to operate. As a college professor he was loved by his students and as a writer he was highly praised. He hung himself on September 12, 2008 as the pain was too much for him to bear.

Chandler was a hard drinking, somewhat irascible man who had a tendency toward clinical depression. He published his first novel until he was in his fifties. After his wife died in 1954 he went off deep end and attempted suicide in 1955.

Woolf’s most famous work was Mrs. Dalloway, a book that explored themes of mental illness, homosexuality and existence itself. On March 28, 1941, she drowned herself in the River Ouse, with the pockets of her coat full with stones. She left a heartbreaking suicide note for her husband.

E. A. Poe was a tortured genius who went through a personal tragedy including the death of his wife in her early twenties (she was also his cousin). After her death he turned to drugs (opium, mainly) and alcohol. In his works you can easily observe his intense melancholy and obsession with death, especially in The Raven. He died in October 7, 1849, a death with unlikely theories as rabies.

Toole is a special guest on this list, taking into consideration the fact that all his work was released posthumously because his genius was recognized and absorbed only after he committed suicide as a result a depressive episode and frustration.

Plath suffered terribly from depression and during her college years she had both electroconvulsive and insulin shock therapy. Many of these experiences were featured in her semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. She killed herself at her thirties by inhaling carbon dioxide fumes from her oven, leaving behind two small children.

Everybody knows Hunter Thompson thanks to his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas but also for a wild, irreverent lifestyle of guns, drugs and hard drinking. He killed himself with a shotgun and left this suicide note: “No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 More than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun – for anybody. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax – This won’t hurt.”

Kurt Vonnegut is known for his book Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel talking about his experiences during World War III. He wrote in the darkly humorous vein of Mark Twain and suffered from depression attempting to kill himself in 1984.

Jack London is the author of rugged tales as The call of the wild. He was actually the survivor of his mother’s madness when she tried to commit suicide by taking laudanum OD and shooting herself in the head unsuccessfully, all these while he was still in her belly. He became an oyster pirate, gold digger and a revolutionary calling for the genocide of various races depending on his mood. He was a bipolar alcoholic and sociopath who may or may not have killed himself with a morphine overdose.