Harry Crosby (June 4, 1898 – December 10, 1929) was an American heir, bon vivant, poet, and for some, an exemplar of the Lost Generation in American literature. June 4 is the 155th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (156th in leap years), with 210 days remaining. ... 1898 (MDCCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday of the 12-day-slower Julian calendar). ... December 10 is the 344th day (345th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, 21 days before the next year. ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... A poet is someone who writes poetry. ... Lost Generation is traditionally attributed to Gertrude Stein[1] and was then popularized by Ernest Hemingway in the epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises,. and his memoir A Moveable Feast. ...

Born Henry Sturgis Crosby (his parents later changed his middle name to "Grew") in Boston's exclusive Back Bay neighborhood, he was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England and the nephew of J.P. Morgan, the financier. As such, he was heir to a substantial family fortune. Nickname: City on the Hill, Beantown, The Hub (of the Universe)1 Location in Massachusetts, USA Counties Suffolk County Mayor Thomas M. Menino (D) Area    - City 232. ... This article is about the neighborhood of Back Bay. ... The states marked in red show New England. ... J. P. Morgan John Pierpont Morgan I (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and banker, who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation. ... Financier (IPA: /ËŒfi nãn ˈsjei/) is an elegant term for a person who handles large sums of money, usually involving money lending, financing projects, large-scale investing, or large-scale money management. ...

During World War I, Harry Crosby said he wanted to escape "the horrors of Boston and particularly of Boston virgins" and volunteered with the American Field Service in France, serving at the Front as a driver in the dangerous ambulance service. On November 22, 1917, a German shell seriously wounded a man standing next to Crosby and as he drove several wounded soldiers to the Medical Corps, his ambulance came under heavy fire. Harry Crosby said that was the night he changed from a boy to a man. Combatants Allied Powers: Russian Empire France British Empire Italy United States Central Powers: Austria-Hungary German Empire Ottoman Empire Bulgaria Commanders Nicholas II Aleksei Brusilov Georges Clemenceau Joseph Joffre Ferdinand Foch Herbert Henry Asquith Douglas Haig John Jellicoe Victor Emmanuel III Luigi Cadorna Armando Diaz Woodrow Wilson John Pershing Franz... AFS Logo AFS was established in 1915 by A. Piatt Andrew, a political economics professor at Harvard University and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury as the American Field Service. ...

In 1921 Crosby married Mary Phelps Jacob, who took the name "Caresse Crosby." Two days after their wedding, they moved to Paris, France, where he worked in his uncle's bank. Drawn to the bohemian lifestyle of the artists gathering in Montparnasse, and desiring to pursue life as a poet, Crosby quit his job at his uncle's bank and in April of 1927 he and wife Caresse founded a book publishing company. Originally named Éditions Narcisse, it was later changed to the Black Sun Press. By 1928, Harry Crosby gained some recognition as a poet after the publishing of his Red Skeletons collection said to be heavily indebted to Charles Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe. Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for full calendar). ... Mary Phelps Jacob (Caresse Crosby) in 1929 The first modern brassiere to receive a patent and gain wide acceptance was a bra invented by a New York socialite named Mary Phelps Jacob in 1910. ... The Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris throughout the world. ... The term Bohemian describes artists, writers, and disenchanted people of all sorts who wished to live non-traditional lifestyles. ... The Montparnasse Tower, which at 209m was the tallest building in Western Europe when it was built. ... Black Sun Press was a book publisher founded in 1927 as Éditions Narcisse by poet Harry Crosby and his wife Caresse, who at the time were expatriates living in Paris. ... Charles Baudelaire, photograph taken by Nadar. ... Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. ...

The Black Sun Press went on to perform important services to the literary community, publishing fiction by D. H. Lawrence and poetry by Archibald MacLeish as well as works by James Joyce, Kay Boyle, and Hart Crane. It also issued two more volumes of Crosby's poetry, Chariot of the Sun and Transit of Venus, which owed as much to Gertrude Stein as his prior poems did to Baudelaire. In 1929, Crosby published his most interesting volume of verse, Mad Queen, displaying the influence of Surrealism. His posthumous work was Torchbearer which displays automatic writing. The four texts were published in a box set, with D. H. Lawrence's intro to Chariot of the Sun, T. S. Eliot's intro to Transit of Venus, Stuart Gilbert's intro to Mad Queen and Ezra Pound's afterward for Torchbearer in 1932. D.H. Lawrence at age 21 (1906) David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an important and controversial English writer of the 20th century, with his output spanning novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. ... Archibald MacLeish Archibald MacLeish (May 7, 1892 – April 20, 1982) was an American poet, writer and the Librarian of Congress. ... James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (Irish Seamus Seoighe; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish writer and poet, widely considered to be one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. ... Kay Boyle Kay Boyle, born February 19, 1902 in St. ... Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio, United States – April 27, 1932 at sea) was a U.S. poet. ... Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer and catalyst in the development of modern art and literature, who spent most of her life in France. ... 1929 (MCMXXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Indefinite Divisibility 1942 Surrealism[1] is a movement stating that the liberation of our mind, and subsequently the liberation of the individual self and society, can be achieved by exercising the imaginative faculties of the unconscious mind to the attainment of a dream-like state different from, or ultimately ‘truer... D.H. Lawrence at age 21 (1906) David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an important and controversial English writer of the 20th century, with his output spanning novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays, travel books, paintings, translations, literary criticism and personal letters. ... A sun chariot is a mythological representation of the sun riding in a chariot. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888–January 4, 1965) was a poet, dramatist and literary critic, whose works, such as The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, and Four Quartets, are considered defining achievements of twentieth century Modernist poetry. ... The 2004 transit of Venus A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and the Earth, obscuring a small portion of the Suns disc. ... Stuart Gilbert (1883 – 1969) was an English literary scholar and translator. ... Ezra Pound in 1913. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ...

On December 10, 1929, Crosby and Josephine Bigelow, née Rotch, a newly married woman with whom Crosby had been carrying on an affair, committed dual suicide. He was found in bed with a neat little .25 caliber hole in his right temple next to Rotch with a matching hole in her left. Harry was still clutching the pistol in one hand, the girl in the other. Crosby's death scandalised the society of the American financial establishment. Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life. ...

Following her husband's death, Caresse Crosby edited his papers and continued the work of the Black Sun Press. She published and translated some of the works of Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker and others, as well as volumes of poetry (Crosses of Gold (Léon Pichon, 1935), Painted Shores (Black Sun Press, 1927), Poems for Harry Crosby (Black Sun Press, 1931)). Alvin Redman published her autobiography, Passionate Years, in 1955. Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. ... William Cuthbert Faulkner (September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was a Nobel Prize winning novelist from Mississippi. ... Dorothy Parker (August 22, 1893 – June 7, 1967) was an American writer and poet, best known for her caustic wit, wisecracks, and sharp eye for 20th century urban foibles. ...

Reference

• Wolfe, Geoffrey: Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby (Random House, 1976) ISBN 0-394-47450-3; (repr. New York Review of Books, 2003) ISBN 1-59017-066-0

Bibiliography

Minkoff, George Robert. A bibliography of the Black Sun Press ... With an introduction by Caresse Crosby. (Great Neck, N.Y.: G. R. Minkoff, 1970)

External links

• Harry Crosby tribute site from Modern American Poetry
• Poems by Harry Crosby from the Oldpoetry.com Archives
• Selected Poems by Harry Crosby