Harry Crosby (June 4, 1898 – December 10, 1929) was an American poet and publisher regarded as a figure of the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J. P. Morgan, Jr. As such, he was heir to a portion of a substantial family fortune. He was a volunteer in the American Field Service and later served in the U.S. Ambulance Corps, narrowly escaping with his life. Profoundly affected by his experience in World War I, Crosby vowed to live life on his own terms as a bon vivant, and abandoned all pretense of living the expected life of a privileged Bostonian. In 1920 he met and married Caresse Crosby; their affair was the source of scandal and gossip among blue-blood Boston. He and Caresse subsequently left for Europe, where they devoted themselves to art and poetry.
The couple enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, drinking, smoking opium regularly, traveling frequently, and having an open marriage. In the late 1920s, Crosby wrote and published poetry that dwelt on solar symbolism and mysticism, and explored transgressive themes of sexual intercourse, pagan worship, sacrifice, death and suicide. He numbered among his friends some of the most famous individuals of the early 20th century, including Salvador Dalí, Ernest Hemingway, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Caresse founded the Black Sun Press with Harry, with it being the first to publish works by several authors who became famous, including Hemingway, D. H. Lawrence, Hart Crane, James Joyce, René Crevel and Kay Boyle. Crosby died in 1929 alongside his new partner Josephine Noyes Rotch, committing a murder–suicide which was speculated as being a suicide pact.
Early life
Crosby (born Henry Sturgis Crosby — his parents Stephen Van Rensslaer Crosby and Henrietta Marion Grew later changed his middle name to Grew) was born in Boston's exclusive Back Bay neighborhood. He was the product of generations of blue-blood English and Dutch American families, descended from the Van Rensselaers, Schuylers, Morgans, and Grews. His uncle was J. Pierpont Morgan Jr., one of the richest men in America at that time. His father's mother was the great-granddaughter of Peggy Schuyler, sister-in-law of Alexander Hamilton. Also among Harry's ancestors were Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler, and William Floyd, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He arrived in France on July 7, 1917. Spaulding was in intensive care for three months and was released from the hospital after six months. Harry was happy to finally have a medal to prove his valor and wrote home, "Oh Boy!!!!!! won THE CROIX DE GUERRE. Thank God."
Attends Harvard
After returning from World War I, Crosby attended Harvard University in the spring of 1919 under an accelerated program for veterans. He took 19 courses, six in French (which he read and spoke fluently) and six in English literature. The remainder of his courses were in fine arts, music, Spanish, and social ethics. Taking his studies very lightly, he thought he was going to fail, and paid a knowledgeable man who was familiar with what questions would be asked on the examinations to tutor him. He graduated with a bachelor of arts in 1921.
He yearned, though, to escape the rigidity of everyday life in Boston. His experience in France made it unbearable to live among what he called "dreary, drearier, dreariest Boston" and to put up with "Boston virgins who are brought up among sexless surroundings, who wear canvas drawers and flat-heeled shoes." Two weeks later, they went to church together in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts and spent the night together. Their public relationship was a scandal among blue-blood Boston. Polly's husband Richard Peabody was in and out of sanatoriums several times fighting alcoholism. In June 1921, she formally separated from him. Later that winter, Polly accepted weekend visits from Crosby, who took the midnight train home to Boston afterward. Crosby continued his work at Morgan, Harjes et Cie, the Morgan family's bank in Paris. They found an apartment at 12, Quai d'Orléans overlooking the Seine, on the exclusive Île Saint-Louis, and Polly donned her red bathing suit and rowed Crosby down the Seine in his dark business suit, formal hat, umbrella, and briefcase to the Place de la Concorde, where he walked the last few blocks to the bank on Place Vendôme. As she rowed back home, Polly, who was well endowed, enjoyed whistles, jeers, and waves from workmen. She said the exercise was good for her breasts.
Life as expatriates
Both of them were attracted to the bohemian lifestyle of the artists gathering in Montparnasse. Even by the wild standards of Paris in the 1920s, Crosby was in a league of his own. The couple lived a hedonistic and decadent life, including an open marriage They drank "oceans of champagne"
In 1924, they rented an apartment in the Faubourg St. Germain for six months from Princess Marthe Bibesco, a friend of Crosby's cousin Walter Berry, for 50,000 francs (the equivalent of $2,200, about $ in modern dollars). When they moved in, they brought with them "two maids and a cook, a governess, and a chauffeur." (or $ in modern dollars). Still, Crosby repeatedly overdrew his account at State Street Trust in Boston and at Morgan, Harjes, in Paris.
During 1929, Crosby wired his father, an investment banker, several times asking him to put more money from his inheritance into his account. In January, he asked his father to sell $4,000 worth (or $ modern value) "to make up for past extravagances in New York" In May, he noted in his diary that he had sold another $4,000 worth of stock "to enjoy life when you can". In mid-July, drunk on sherry cobblers, He often added a doodle of a "black sun" to his signature which also included an arrow, jutting upward from the "y" in Crosby's last name and aiming toward the center of the sun's circle: "a phallic thrust received by a welcoming erogenous zone." In July 1927, Crosby and Hemingway visited Pamplona for the running of the bulls.
They hosted wild parties at the mill, including drunken polo on donkeys, and entertained famous guests such as Salvador Dalí. They spent their time together taking and printing pictures at Crosby's home, Le Moulin du Soleil.
Crosby also learned to fly solo in November 1929, when the aeroplane was so new that its spelling had not been agreed upon.
Extra-marital relationships
thumb|Constance Coolidge (1892-1973) ([[John Singer Sargent, 1915)]]
In 1923, shortly after their arrival in Paris, Caresse introduced Crosby to her friend Constance Crowninshield Coolidge, also a Boston Brahmin, an American expatriate. She was the niece of Frank Crowninshield, editor of Vanity Fair, and had been married to American diplomat Ray Atherton. Constance did not care what others thought about her. She loved anything risky and was addicted to gambling. Crosby nicknamed her the "Lady of the Golden Horse". She began a sexual relationship with Crosby that continued for several months. Harry rationalized their affair, telling Constance "One should follow every instinct no matter where it leads."
Harry and Caresse decided on an open marriage and had several lovers. He became legendary for his seductive abilities in some social circles in Paris,
Their wildness was in full flower during the drunken orgies of the annual Four Arts Balls (Bal des Quatz' Arts). In July 1927, he turned 10 live snakes loose on the dance floor. He wrote in his diary about it later:
One year, Caresse arrived topless riding a baby elephant and wearing a turquoise wig. The motif for the ball that year was Inca, and Crosby dressed for the occasion, covering himself in red ochre and wearing nothing but a loincloth and a necklace of dead pigeons.
In 1928, they found they enjoyed the reception their initial works received, and decided to expand the press to serve other authors, renaming the company the Black Sun Press, following on Crosby's obsession on the symbolism of the sun. They rapidly gained notice for publishing beautifully bound, typographically flawless editions of unusual books. They took exquisite care with the books they published, choosing the finest papers and inks.
They published early works of several writers before they were well known, including James Joyce's Tales Told of Shem and Shaun (which was later integrated into Finnegans Wake). They published Kay Boyle's first book-length work, Short Stories, in 1929. and works by Hart Crane, D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Archibald MacLeish, Ernest Hemingway, Laurence Sterne, and Eugene Jolas. The Black Sun Press evolved into one of the most important small presses in Paris in the 1920s. After Crosby died in a suicide pact with one of his many lovers, Caresse Crosby continued publishing into the 1940s.
The Fire Princess
On July 9, 1928, Crosby met 20-year-old Josephine Noyes Rotch, the daughter of Arthur and Helen Ludington Rotch of Boston. Ten years his junior, Josephine was shopping in Venice at the Lido for her wedding dress. She had belonged to the Vincent Club and the Junior League and graduated from Lee School before she had attended Bryn Mawr College. After only two years at Bryn Mawr, she left because she planned to marry Albert Bigelow. "She was dark and intense...since the season of her coming out in 1926-1927, she had been known around Boston as fast, a 'bad egg'...with a good deal of sex appeal."
They met for sex as often as her eight days in Venice would allow. He later called her the "Youngest Princess of the Sun" and the "Fire Princess". She was also from a prominent Boston family which first settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1690. Josephine inspired Crosby's next collection of poems, which he dedicated to her, titled Transit of Venus. In a letter dated July 24, 1928, Crosby detailed the affair to his mother, in whom he had always confided: