Authors with mental illness

A number of published authors have had mental illness. This list is to acknowledge the wealth of literature that has come from those who struggled with mental illness. Earlier figures were often reluctant to discuss or seek treatment for mental illness due to social stigma about the condition, or due to ignorance of diagnosis or treatments. Some historical personalities are presumed to have suffered from mental illness based on analysis or interpretation of letters, journals, artwork, writings or statements of family and friends.
This list includes only: a) deceased persons; and b) living persons who have been frank about their condition. It does not include speculation about status of living people who have not publicly stated themselves to have a history of mental illness. In addition to the above criteria, persons are only listed here if they also meet the .
B
* Charles Baudelaire (Bipolar disorder)
* Andy Behrman (Bipolar disorder)
* Robert Burton
C
* Raymond Chandler
* Iris Chang
* Joseph Conrad
* Robert S. Corrington
* William Cowper
F
* Carrie Fisher (Bipolar disorder)
* Stephen Fry
G
* Federico García Lorca
* Romain Gary
* Spalding Gray
* Graham Greene
* Ivor Gurney
H
* Ernest Hemingway
* Hermann Hesse
J
* Kay Redfield Jamison
* Samuel Johnson
K
* Sarah Kane
* Kerry Katona (Bipolar disorder)
* Susanna Kaysen
* Patrick K. Kroupa
M
* Marya Hornbacher
* Guy de Maupassant
* Kate Millett
* Spike Milligan (Bipolar disorder)
N
* Friedrich Nietzsche
O
* Eugene O'Neill
P
* Jane Pauley
* Sylvia Plath
R
* J. K. Rowling
S
* Anne Sexton
* Christopher Smart
T
* Georg Trakl
V
* Kurt Vonnegut
W
* Mike Wallace
* William Styron
* William Carlos Williams
* Virginia Woolf
* Elizabeth Wurtzel
 
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