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Martha Gellhorn ( 8 November 1908 - 15 February 1998) was an American novelist and journalist considered one of the greatest war correspondents of the 20th century. During her sixty-year career, she reported on virtually every major world conflict which took place during that period. Gellhorn was also the second wife of American novelist Ernest Hemingway, from 1940 to 1945.

Gellhorn was born in St. Louis. She graduated from that city's John Burroughs School, then attended Bryn Mawr College but left in 1927 to pursue a career as a journalist. Her first articles appeared in the New Republic. In 1930, determined to become a foreign correspondent, she went to France for two years where she worked at the United Press bureau in Paris.

While in Europe she became active in the pacifist movement and wrote about her experiences in the book, What Mad Pursuit (1934).

Upon returning to the US, Gellhorn was hired by Harry Hopkins as an investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, where she had the task of reporting the impact of the Depression on the United States. Her reports for that agency caught the attention of Eleanor RooseveltAnna Eleanor Roosevelt ( October 11 1884 November 7 1962) was an American human rights activist, diplomat and as the wife of U. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the longest acting First Lady. An active First Lady, she traveled around the United States, and the two women became lifelong friends. Her findings were the basis of a novella, The Trouble I've Seen (1936).

In 1937, Gellhorn was hired by Collier's WeeklyCollier's Weekly was a United States magazine that was published between 1888 and 1957. The periodical was founded as Collier's Once a Week in April 1888 as a magazine of "fiction, fact, sensation, wit, humor, news" by Peter Collier (1849-1918), an Irish to report the Spanish Civil WarTeruel, east of Madrid. For an article about the 1820-1823 civil war in Spain, see: Spanish Civil War, 1820-1823 The Spanish Civil War ( 1936 1939) was the result of complex political differences between the Republicans — supporters of the government of t. While in Spain , she met Ernest Hemingway; the couple later married in 1940. Gellhorn subsequently travelled to Germany where she reported the rise of Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler ( April 20, 1889 April 30, 1945) was the Fuhrer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers' Party and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. In that capacity he was Chancellor of Germany, head of government, and head of state, ruling as a and in 1938 was in CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia ( Czech: Ceskoslovensko Slovak: Cesko-Slovensko before 1990 Ceskoslovensko ) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1992 (except for the World War II period). On January 1, 1993, it peacefully split into the Czech Repu. After the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, she wrote about these events in the novel, A Stricken Field (1940). She later reported from FinlandSuomen TasavaltaRepubliken Finland ( In Detail) ( In Detail) National motto: None Official languages Finnish and Swedish Capital Helsinki President Tarja Halonen Prime minister Matti Vanhanen Area Total % water Ranked 64th 337,030 km² 9. 4% Population Tot, Hong KongThe Hong Kong Special Administrative Region or Hong Kong (, pinyin: Xinggng, WG: Hsiang-kang, Cantonese IPA, Jyutping or Penkyamp: hoeng1 gong2, meaning Fragrant Harbour , is one of two Special Administrative Regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of Chi, Burma, Singapore and Britain. Lacking official press credentials, she impersonated a stretcher bearer in order to witness the D-Day landings. As Gellhorn later recalled, "I followed the war wherever I could reach it."

After the war, Gellhorn worked for Atlantic Monthly, covering the Vietnam War, the Six-Day Warin the Middle East and the civil wars in Central America. Only when the Bosnian war broke out in the 1990s did she concede she was too old to go: "You need to be nimble."

Gellhorn published a large number of books including a collection of articles on war, The Face of War (1959), a novel about McCarthyism, The Lowest Tress Have Tops (1967), an account of her life with Ernest Hemingway, Travels With Myself and Another (1978) and a collection of her peacetime journalism, The View From the Ground (1988). Gellhorn died in London in 1998 at the age of 89.

Gellhorn resented her fame as Hemingway's second wife, remarking that she had no intention of being a footnote in someone else's life. As a condition for granting an interview, at times she insisted that Hemingway's name not be mentioned.