The Sun Also Rises
How Pat appears in its pages: Brett's fiancé — Scottish, charming, bankrupt two ways: gradually and then suddenly.
Read the character guide- Muse
Pat Guthrie
The bankrupt Scot of the 1925 Pamplona party, model for Mike Campbell, and the one member of the group whose life did not recover from the decade.
Details
- 1895–1932
- 4 August 1895
- London
- 24 May 1932
- Paris
- British
- Muse
- Patrick Stirling Guthrie
About Pat Guthrie
Patrick Stirling Guthrie was born in London on 4 August 1895, into a family with money and a castle. His father, Walter Murray Guthrie, was a merchant banker who sat as a Conservative member of parliament from 1899 to 1906 and died in 1911, when Pat Guthrie was fifteen. His mother was Olive Louisa Blanche Leslie, a daughter of an Irish baronet. The family held property in London and Torosay Castle on the Isle of Mull, which is where the Scottishness came from; Hemingway called him Scotch, though he was born in London and spent most of his life in England.
He was educated at Eton, Cambridge, and Sandhurst, and went into the First Life Guards, the cavalry regiment, taking a lieutenant's commission in 1915 at twenty. The regiment fought at Mons, Ypres, and Passchendaele. He came back from that war damaged in a way the period had no vocabulary for and no treatment: the people who knew him in Paris described someone sweet-natured and widely liked who had never got over it, and who was weak in body and in resolution both.
By the early 1920s he was in Montparnasse with Lady Duff Twysden, his fourth cousin. What they were to each other is not settled: they were plainly close and generally taken for a couple, though some accounts read him as a convenient escort and suggest he was homosexual. He was an undischarged bankrupt living on an allowance from his family, a remittance man in the exact sense, and he drank heavily. Every one of those facts went into Mike Campbell in The Sun Also Rises — the bankruptcy, the allowance routed through creditors, the charm, and the cruelty that arrived with the drink.
He went to the fiesta at Pamplona in July 1925 with Ernest Hemingway, Hadley Richardson, Duff Twysden, Harold Loeb, and Donald Ogden Stewart, and the week's quarrels became the novel Hemingway started days later. In 1927 Hemingway mentioned in a letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald that Duff Twysden and Guthrie had parted. An older American journalist, Lorna Lindsley, paid some of his debts and kept him out of trouble for a while after that.
He died in Paris on 24 May 1932, at thirty-six. Accounts differ on how: some say he took his own life, others that it was a drug overdose, and the record does not settle which. His mother travelled to Paris to close his affairs and pay what he still owed. Of the friends who went to Pamplona in 1925, he is the one whose life the decade simply consumed — Loeb wrote his memoir, Stewart won an Academy Award, Duff Twysden married again and got six more years. Guthrie got the character, and the character is the reason his name survives.
Life events
Born in London on 4 August, son of the banker and Conservative MP Walter Murray Guthrie and Olive Leslie, daughter of an Irish baronet.
His father dies. The family holds property in London and Torosay Castle on the Isle of Mull.
Commissioned lieutenant in the First Life Guards at twenty. The regiment fights at Mons, Ypres, and Passchendaele.
Lives in Montparnasse with his fourth cousin Duff Twysden, an undischarged bankrupt on a family allowance.
Goes to the fiesta at Pamplona in July with Hemingway, Hadley Richardson, Duff Twysden, Harold Loeb, and Donald Ogden Stewart.
Published as Mike Campbell in The Sun Also Rises, bankruptcy, allowance, and all.
Hemingway writes to F. Scott Fitzgerald that Duff Twysden and Guthrie have parted. The journalist Lorna Lindsley later pays some of his debts.
Dies in Paris on 24 May at thirty-six. Accounts differ between suicide and a drug overdose; his mother comes over to settle his affairs.
Featured in these books
People they knew
Ernest Hemingway
- Author
- Journalist
Met
One of the party Hemingway took to the fiesta at Pamplona in July 1925, travelling with his cousin Duff Twysden.
Questions about Pat Guthrie
Who was Pat Guthrie?
A British man of Scottish family, born in London in 1895, who lived in Montparnasse in the 1920s on a family allowance and was the model for Mike Campbell in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. He was at the 1925 Pamplona fiesta that became the novel.
Is Mike Campbell based on Pat Guthrie?
Yes, closely. Mike Campbell's undischarged bankruptcy, the allowance from his family, the heavy drinking, and the engagement to Brett Ashley all come from Guthrie's life with Duff Twysden — though in reality the two never married.
How did Pat Guthrie die?
He died in Paris on 24 May 1932, at thirty-six. Accounts differ on the cause: some say suicide, others a drug overdose, and the record does not settle it. His mother travelled to Paris afterwards to pay his outstanding debts.
What was Pat Guthrie's relationship to Duff Twysden?
They were fourth cousins and lived together in Paris, generally taken for a couple. The nature of the relationship is not documented: some accounts read them as lovers, others suggest he was a convenient escort and that he was homosexual. Hemingway wrote in 1927 that they had parted.
Did Pat Guthrie fight in the First World War?
Yes. He was commissioned a lieutenant in the First Life Guards in 1915, aged twenty, in a regiment that saw action at Mons, Ypres, and Passchendaele. Those who knew him in Paris described a man who never recovered from it.
Sourced claims
Met
Ernest Hemingway
One of the party Hemingway took to the fiesta at Pamplona in July 1925, travelling with his cousin Duff Twysden.
Depicted in
The Sun Also Rises
Mike Campbell is drawn from him — Duff Twysden's cousin and companion, and one of the party at the 1925 fiesta. In the novel he is her fiance; the two never married.