I'm looking for a list of famous authors who have committed suicide, especially American authors.?

Question

I know of Hemmingway and Plath, but I'd like to compile a more extensive list.

Answer 1

Well you could browse this list of famous suicides (or use the Find Tool on your browser)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicides

or get the book Final Drafts: Suicides of World Famous Authors by Mark Seinfelt

Here are a few listed in the book (I'm sure they're not all American, but I don't recognize all the names):
Hart Crane, Ernest Hemingway, Jerzy Kosinski, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Kennedy Toole, Virginia Woolf, Kosinski, Michael Dorris, and Eugene Izzi,John Berryman, Ambrose Bierce, Harry Crosby, John Davidson, William Inge, Randall Jarrell, Arthur Koestler, T. E. Lawrence, Primo Levi, Jack London, Jay Anthony Lukas, Tom McHale, Yukio Mishima, Henry de Montherlant, Seth Morgan, George Sterling, Sara Teasdale, Ernst Toller, Sergey Yesenin.

Answer 2

"John Allyn Berryman (originally John Allyn Smith) (October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and often considered one of the founders of the Confessional school of poetry. He is one of the figures acting as a bridge between the formally loose, socially aware poetry of the Beats and the personal, grieving poetry of Sylvia Plath. He was the author of The Dream Songs, which are playful, witty, and morbid. Berryman died by suicide in 1972.

Of his youthful self he said, 'I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Berryman

Answer 3

Iris Chang (The Rape of Nanking)-Her material overwhelmed her
Jack Black -believed to be a sucicide/drowning,Steven "Jesse" Bernstein - both were associated with Richard Burroughs during their lifetime

Richard Gary Brautigan,Cale Young Rice,Anne Sexton,

Michael Anthony Dorris,Spalding Gray, Charles Williams,

John Allyn Berryman-Dream Songs/Pulitzer
Francis Parker Yockey,Jason Moss(serial killers),
James Robert Baker,Rex Beach,Orrick Glenday Johns
Wallace "Wally" Wood-wrote comics-MAD magazine

Answer 4

Hunter Thompson..and Virginia Woolf..Sarah Teasdale

Answer 5

John Kennedy Toole

Answer 6

Spaulding Gray

Answer 7

Dorothy Parker, Hunter S. Thompson, Hart Crane, Jerzy Kosinski, Virginia Woolf....

Hold on....I'm still thinking...

SCRATCH PARKER--she died of a heart attack....sorry.

Add Eugene Izzi--he killed himself 10 years ago TODAY at age 43 by hanging--he was a mystery writer.

Answer 8

that's what google is for.