Black Sun Press
Encyclopedia
The Black Sun Press was an English language
book publisher founded in 1927 as Éditions Narcisse by poet Harry Crosby
and his wife Caresse Crosby (née Mary Phelps Jacob), American expatriate
s living in Paris
. In April 1927 they named their press after their black whippet
Narcisse, and they used the press as an avenue to publish their own poetry in small editions of finely-made, hard-bound volumes. They enjoyed the reception their initial work received, and decided to expand the press to serve other authors, renaming the company the Black Sun Press, following on Harry's obsession on the symbolism of the sun.
They printed limited quantities of meticulously produced, hand-manufactured books, printed on high-quality paper. In 1928, as Éditions Narcisse, they printed a limited edition of 300 numbered copies of "The Fall of the House of Usher
" by Edgar Allan Poe
. Publishing in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s put the company at the crossroads of many emerging American writers who were living abroad. They published early works of a number of 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 Stores, 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 Harry died in a suicide pact
with one of his many lovers, Caresse Crosby continued publishing into the 1940s.
and Caresse Crosby began publishing their own poetry in 1925. One of their first two books was a volume of poetry by Caresse, Crosses of Gold, printed by Léon Pichon and published in 1925. Its frontleaf bore their names in the form of a gold cross with the 'r' in Caresse intersecting the first 'r' in Harry's name. The second was Harry’s Sonnets for Caresse. Dissatisfied with the quality of the printing of these books they sought out Roger Lescaret, a master printer, whose shop at No. 2, Rue Cardinale was not far from the Crosbys' apartment in Paris. His previous works had been limited to funeral notices, but that did not deter them. Lescaret printed Harry Crosby's next collection of poetry, Red Skeletons, with illustrations by their friend Alastair
, as well as other volumes of poetry including Harry Crosby's Painted Shores (1927), said to be heavily influenced by Charles Baudelaire
and Edgar Allan Poe
. They were so happy with the result that they decided to start a press to publish other works. They followed with two books by Caresse, Painted Shores and The Stranger.
by Edgar Allan Poe
with illustrations by Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)
. They printed a Hindu "Love Book," and letters sent to Harry’s cousin, Walter Berry, by Henry James
. Harry chose the titles and Caresse edited the books. Both selected the typeface, margins, and so forth. Harry created the bindings, boxes, and ribbons in expensive state-of-the art materials made by Babout.
The Crosbys published a number of eminent 20th century authors before they became well-known, including D. H. Lawrence
and James Joyce
, both of whom were friends of Crosbys. Additional authors published by the Black Sun Press include Kay Boyle
, whose first book Short Stories was published by Black Sun. Other authors included Ezra Pound
, Archibald MacLeish
, Ernest Hemingway
, Eugene Jolas
and Oscar Wilde
.
' quarterly literary Journal transition
, an outlet for experimental writing that featured modernest, surrealist, and other linguistically innovative writing. They were frequent visitors to Shakespeare and Company
, a bookshop founded by Sylvia Beach
. They sold their collection of Kay Boyle's short stories through Shakespeare and Company.
In 1928, Harry and Caresse changed the name of the press to the Black Sun Press in keeping with Harry's fascination with the symbolism of the sun. The press 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.
, for whom they published a limited edition of The Escaped Cock
in September 1929 (also published as The Man Who Died). Lawrence later wrote the introduction to Harry Crosby's volume of poetry, Chariot of the Sun.
Harry occasionally spent time with one of their authors, Ernest Hemingway
, who he had met skiing, and in July 1927 they visited Pamplona
for the running of the bulls. Harry often drank to excess when with Hemingway. Although Harry spoke fluent French, they socialized primarily among fellow American expatriates. They became close friends with some of the authors they worked with. When Harry visited New York in 1928, he cashed in some stock dividends to help Boyle pay for an abortion.
In 1928, Harry's cousin Walter Berry
died, leaving a considerable collection of over 8,000 mostly rare books. In his will he left "all the rest of my books...except such books which Edith Wharton
may desire to take...I give and bequeath to my cousin, Harry Grew Crosby." Harry eagerly campaigned to persuade Berry's long-time friend Edith Wharton to give him a great many of the books, and in the end she kept less than 100. Harry prized the collection at first but he became enamored of the idea of reducing the things around him. Caresse later wrote, "We had talked to a wise man in Egypt in 1928 who said, 'My wealth I measure by the things I do without,' and Harry believed the books weighed him down." Every morning he would leave with a satchel full of rare books, despite Caresse's attempts to persuade him otherwise, and give them to waiters, barmen, and cab drivers; sometimes he would sneak them into antiquarian bookshops that lined the Seine with ridiculously low prices penciled into them.
The Black Sun Press also published the poetry of Archibald MacLeish
, who had like Harry overturned the normal expectations of society, rejecting a career as a lawyer with one of Boston's best law firms and lecturing at Harvard. Harry offered to publish MacLeish's long poem Einstein in a deluxe edition, and paid MacLeish USD$200 for his work. They printed 150 copies which were quickly sold.
In February 1929, Hart Crane
arrived in Paris. He had received $2,000 from Arts patron Otto H. Kahn
in 1928 to begin work on what became a book-length poem, The Bridge, but was frustrated at his lack of progress. He wore out his welcome at the home of his lover, Emil Opffer, and Crane left for Paris in early 1929. After he got to Paris, Harry offered him the use of the Crosby's country retreat, Le Moulin du Soleil, in Ermenonville
, so he could concentrate on working on his poem. Crane spent several weeks there and roughed out a draft of the "Cape Hatteras" section, a key part of the epic poem. In late June that year, Crane returned from the south of France to Paris. Harry noted in his journal, "Hart C. back from Marseilles where he slept with his thirty sailors and he began again to drink Cutty Sark..." Crane, a heavy drinker since his early days in New York, got drunk at the Cafe Select and fought with waiters over his tab. When the Paris police were called, he fought with them and was beaten. They arrested and jailed him, fining him 800 francs. After six days in prison at La Santé
, Harry Crosby paid Crane's fine and advanced him money for the passage back to the United States where he finally finished The Bridge.
In 1929, through bookstore owner Sylvia Beach
, they contacted James Joyce
and arranged to print three of his stories that had already appeared in translation. They named the new book Tales Told of Shem and Shaun (which was later integrated into Finnegans Wake
), for which they paid Joyce USD$2000 for 600 copies, unusually good pay for Joyce at that time. Their printer Roger Lescaret erred when setting the type, leaving the final page with only two lines. Rather than reset the entire book, he suggested to the Crosby's that they ask Joyce to write an additional eight lines to fill in the remainder of the page. Caresse refused, insisting that a literary master would never alter his work to fix a printer's error. Lescaret appealed directly to Joyce, who promptly wrote the eight lines requested. The first 100 copies of Joyce's book were printed on Japanese velum and signed by the author. It was hand-set in Caslon type and included an abstract portrait of Joyce by Constantin Brâncuşi
, a pioneer of modernist abstract sculpture. Brâncuşi's drawings of Joyce became among the most popular images of him.
During the rest of 1929, they published fourteen works by Ernest Hemingway
, James Joyce
, René Crevel
, T. S. Eliot
, and Ezra Pound
among others. The Crosbys also published early works by newly emerging writers including Ramon Sartoris, Julian Levy, and Dorothy Parker
.
. They reprinted it in October 1928, printing only 20 copies. Bound in navy blue leather, the cover was stamped with gold to reflect the style of ancient Persian
manuscripts. The inside pages were printed on handmade paper colored a distinctive shade of gray and decorated with a gold border. Each illustration in every copy was hand-colored.
Their books were generally published in small numbers, usually less than 500 copies, sometimes as few as 10 or 20. They were "marked by clean lines, sharp typeface, and fine inks and papers." Some editions were published first as a "limited" edition, usually numbered and autographed, showcased with detailed design and costly materials, followed by a less expensive "trade" edition. Most were issued in slipcases. They published Les Liaisons Dangereuses with illustrations by Alastair
. The cover was red-purple cloth with gilt lettering; it contained 14 engravings on color plates, with tissue guards, and numerous in-text illustrations.
In 1929, they published Harry Crosby's volume of verse, Mad Queen, which showed the influence of Surrealism
and which included withering attacks on Bostonian tradition. Apart from his obsession with the sun, his writing increasingly contained references to dissolution and suicide. He viewed death as violent, quick, and liberating.
threw a party to celebrate his completion after seven years of his poem, The Bridge
, which was to be published by the Black Sun Press, and to bid Harry and Caresse bon voyage, since they were due to sail back to France the next week. The party went on until nearly dawn, and Harry and Caresse made plans to see Crane again on December 10 to see the play Berkeley Square before they left for Europe.
On December 9, Josephine, who instead of returning to Boston had stayed with one of her bridesmaids in New York, sent a 36-line poem to Harry Crosby, who was staying with Caresse at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel. The last line of the poem read:
On the same day, Harry Crosby wrote his final entry in his journal:
.
Harry's poetry possibly gave the best clue to his motives. Death was "the hand that opens the door to our cage the home we instinctively fly to." His manner of death mortified proper Boston society.
's book-length poem The Bridge
, replete with tipped-in photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge
taken by Walker Evans
, his public debut.
She followed that by releasing a "collected Crosby"—four books that reprinted earlier collections. One of these collections had been originally introduced by D. H. Lawrence. To accompany it, Caresse solicited essays for the other three from T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Stuart Gilbert. Caresse published two volumes of Harry Crosby's poetry, Chariot of the Sun and Transit of Venus. He had dedicated the latter volume to his lover, Josephine Rotch Bigelow.
In 1943, during the Second World War, she designed and published the first English-language edition of the surrealist collaboration betweenMax Ernst
and Paul Eluard
book, Misfortunes of the Immortals, first published in 1920. Translated by Hugh Chisholm
, it featured newly added content, "Three Drawings Twenty Years Later", by Ernst. Due to limited availability of quality paper during war-time, it was printed by handset letterpress at the Gemor Press, on "exceptionally cheap wartime newsprint."
The Black Sun Press broadened its scope after Harry's death. Although it published few works after 1952, it printed James Joyce's Collected Poems in 1963. It did not officially close until Caresse's death on January 24, 1970 at age 78.
She had also established, with Jacques Porel, a side venture, Crosby Continental Editions, which published paperback books by European writers including Alain Fournier
, Charles-Louis Philippe
, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
, Paul Eluard
, George Grosz
, Max Ernst
, C. G. Jung and Americans like Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker
, William Faulkner
, and Kay Boyle, among others. Her paperback books, an innovative product in the 1930s, were not well received, and she closed the press in 1933.
and others have called dilettantes.
. A fine copy was offered in New York during 2010 by Hugh Anson-Cartwright Fine Books for USD$ (or about €).
A near-fine copy of the first English-language edition of Max Ernst
's and Paul Eluard
's book, Misfortunes of the Immortals, which Caresse published in 1943, was offered for sale in 2010 by Derringer Books for £ (about € or $).
1927, 1928
1929
1930
1931, 1932
1936–1948
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
book publisher founded in 1927 as Éditions Narcisse by poet Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby
Harry Crosby was an American heir, a bon vivant, poet, publisher, and for some, epitomized the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a member of the Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J....
and his wife Caresse Crosby (née Mary Phelps Jacob), American expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
s living in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In April 1927 they named their press after their black whippet
Whippet
The Whippet is a breed of dog in the sighthound family. They are active and playful and are physically similar to a small Greyhound.- Description :...
Narcisse, and they used the press as an avenue to publish their own poetry in small editions of finely-made, hard-bound volumes. They enjoyed the reception their initial work received, and decided to expand the press to serve other authors, renaming the company the Black Sun Press, following on Harry's obsession on the symbolism of the sun.
They printed limited quantities of meticulously produced, hand-manufactured books, printed on high-quality paper. In 1928, as Éditions Narcisse, they printed a limited edition of 300 numbered copies of "The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque...
" by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. Publishing in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s put the company at the crossroads of many emerging American writers who were living abroad. They published early works of a number of writers before they were well-known, including James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Tales Told of Shem and Shaun (which was later integrated into Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
. They published Kay Boyle
Kay Boyle
Kay Boyle was an American writer, educator, and political activist.- Early years :The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio...
's first book-length work, Short Stores, in 1929. and works by Hart Crane
Hart Crane
-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
, D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
, and Eugene Jolas
Eugene Jolas
John George Eugene Jolas was a writer, translator and literary critic.-Biography:Eugene Jolas was born in Union City, New Jersey, but grew up in Forbach in Elsass-Lothringen , to which his family returned when he was two years old. He spent periods of his adult life living in both the U.S...
. The Black Sun Press evolved into one of the most important small presses in Paris in the 1920s. After Harry died in a suicide pact
Suicide pact
A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to commit suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed. Suicide pacts are important concepts in the study of suicide, and have occurred throughout history, as well as in fiction.Suicide pacts are generally...
with one of his many lovers, Caresse Crosby continued publishing into the 1940s.
Publish own works
HarryHarry Crosby
Harry Crosby was an American heir, a bon vivant, poet, publisher, and for some, epitomized the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a member of the Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J....
and Caresse Crosby began publishing their own poetry in 1925. One of their first two books was a volume of poetry by Caresse, Crosses of Gold, printed by Léon Pichon and published in 1925. Its frontleaf bore their names in the form of a gold cross with the 'r' in Caresse intersecting the first 'r' in Harry's name. The second was Harry’s Sonnets for Caresse. Dissatisfied with the quality of the printing of these books they sought out Roger Lescaret, a master printer, whose shop at No. 2, Rue Cardinale was not far from the Crosbys' apartment in Paris. His previous works had been limited to funeral notices, but that did not deter them. Lescaret printed Harry Crosby's next collection of poetry, Red Skeletons, with illustrations by their friend Alastair
Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)
thumb|Illustration from [[Harry Crosby]]'s book Red Skeletons published in 1927.Alastair was a German artist, composer, dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator. Mysterious, flamboyant, enigmatic and attractive to many people, he was born of German nobility in Karlsruhe. In his youth he joined...
, as well as other volumes of poetry including Harry Crosby's Painted Shores (1927), said to be heavily influenced by Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
and Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. They were so happy with the result that they decided to start a press to publish other works. They followed with two books by Caresse, Painted Shores and The Stranger.
Expand press
They rented space above Roger Lescaret's print shop at 2, rue Cardinal. The books were hand-made, "lavishly bound, typographically impeccable" versions of unusual books that interested them, like The Fall of the House of UsherThe Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque...
by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
with illustrations by Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)
Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)
thumb|Illustration from [[Harry Crosby]]'s book Red Skeletons published in 1927.Alastair was a German artist, composer, dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator. Mysterious, flamboyant, enigmatic and attractive to many people, he was born of German nobility in Karlsruhe. In his youth he joined...
. They printed a Hindu "Love Book," and letters sent to Harry’s cousin, Walter Berry, by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
. Harry chose the titles and Caresse edited the books. Both selected the typeface, margins, and so forth. Harry created the bindings, boxes, and ribbons in expensive state-of-the art materials made by Babout.
The Crosbys published a number of eminent 20th century authors before they became well-known, including D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
and James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, both of whom were friends of Crosbys. Additional authors published by the Black Sun Press include Kay Boyle
Kay Boyle
Kay Boyle was an American writer, educator, and political activist.- Early years :The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio...
, whose first book Short Stories was published by Black Sun. Other authors included Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, Eugene Jolas
Eugene Jolas
John George Eugene Jolas was a writer, translator and literary critic.-Biography:Eugene Jolas was born in Union City, New Jersey, but grew up in Forbach in Elsass-Lothringen , to which his family returned when he was two years old. He spent periods of his adult life living in both the U.S...
and Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
.
Support experimental writing
In 1927, they became editors of poet Eugene JolasEugene Jolas
John George Eugene Jolas was a writer, translator and literary critic.-Biography:Eugene Jolas was born in Union City, New Jersey, but grew up in Forbach in Elsass-Lothringen , to which his family returned when he was two years old. He spent periods of his adult life living in both the U.S...
' quarterly literary Journal transition
Transition (literary journal)
transition was an experimental literary journal that featured surrealist, expressionist, and Dada art and artists. It was founded in 1927 by poet Eugene Jolas and his wife Maria McDonald and published in Paris...
, an outlet for experimental writing that featured modernest, surrealist, and other linguistically innovative writing. They were frequent visitors to Shakespeare and Company
Shakespeare and Company (bookshop)
Shakespeare and Company is the name of two independent bookstores on Paris' Left Bank. The first was opened by Sylvia Beach on 17 November 1919 at 8 rue Dupuytren before moving to larger premises at 12 rue de l'Odéon in the 6th arrondissement in 1922. During the 1920s, it was a gathering place for...
, a bookshop founded by Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach , born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris, where she was one of the leading expatriate figures between World War I and II.-Early life:...
. They sold their collection of Kay Boyle's short stories through Shakespeare and Company.
In 1928, Harry and Caresse changed the name of the press to the Black Sun Press in keeping with Harry's fascination with the symbolism of the sun. The press 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.
Expand literary circle
Their literary tastes matured and they sought out their Parisian literary friends and offered to publish their writing. Their friends included D. H. LawrenceD. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
, for whom they published a limited edition of The Escaped Cock
The Escaped Cock
The Escaped Cock is a short novel by D. H. Lawrence that was originally written in two parts and published in 1929. Lawrence wrote the first part in 1927 after visiting some Etruscan tombs with his friend Earl Brewster, a trip that encouraged the author to reflect upon death and myths of...
in September 1929 (also published as The Man Who Died). Lawrence later wrote the introduction to Harry Crosby's volume of poetry, Chariot of the Sun.
Harry occasionally spent time with one of their authors, Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, who he had met skiing, and in July 1927 they visited Pamplona
Pamplona
Pamplona is the historial capital city of Navarre, in Spain, and of the former kingdom of Navarre.The city is famous worldwide for the San Fermín festival, from July 6 to 14, in which the running of the bulls is one of the main attractions...
for the running of the bulls. Harry often drank to excess when with Hemingway. Although Harry spoke fluent French, they socialized primarily among fellow American expatriates. They became close friends with some of the authors they worked with. When Harry visited New York in 1928, he cashed in some stock dividends to help Boyle pay for an abortion.
In 1928, Harry's cousin Walter Berry
Walter Van Rensselaer Berry
Walter Van Rensselaer Berry was an American lawyer, diplomat, Francophile, and friend of several great writers.-Biography:Berry was born in Paris, a descendant of the Van Rensselaer family of New York. After attending St...
died, leaving a considerable collection of over 8,000 mostly rare books. In his will he left "all the rest of my books...except such books which Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton , was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and designer.- Early life and marriage:...
may desire to take...I give and bequeath to my cousin, Harry Grew Crosby." Harry eagerly campaigned to persuade Berry's long-time friend Edith Wharton to give him a great many of the books, and in the end she kept less than 100. Harry prized the collection at first but he became enamored of the idea of reducing the things around him. Caresse later wrote, "We had talked to a wise man in Egypt in 1928 who said, 'My wealth I measure by the things I do without,' and Harry believed the books weighed him down." Every morning he would leave with a satchel full of rare books, despite Caresse's attempts to persuade him otherwise, and give them to waiters, barmen, and cab drivers; sometimes he would sneak them into antiquarian bookshops that lined the Seine with ridiculously low prices penciled into them.
The Black Sun Press also published the poetry of Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish
Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
, who had like Harry overturned the normal expectations of society, rejecting a career as a lawyer with one of Boston's best law firms and lecturing at Harvard. Harry offered to publish MacLeish's long poem Einstein in a deluxe edition, and paid MacLeish USD$200 for his work. They printed 150 copies which were quickly sold.
In February 1929, Hart Crane
Hart Crane
-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
arrived in Paris. He had received $2,000 from Arts patron Otto H. Kahn
Otto Hermann Kahn
Otto Hermann Kahn was an investment banker, collector, philanthropist, and patron of the arts.-Life and career:He was born on February 21, 1867, and raised in the city of Mannheim, Germany, to Jewish parents...
in 1928 to begin work on what became a book-length poem, The Bridge, but was frustrated at his lack of progress. He wore out his welcome at the home of his lover, Emil Opffer, and Crane left for Paris in early 1929. After he got to Paris, Harry offered him the use of the Crosby's country retreat, Le Moulin du Soleil, in Ermenonville
Ermenonville
Ermenonville is a small village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.Ermenonville is notable for its park named for Jean-Jacques Rousseau by René Louis de Girardin...
, so he could concentrate on working on his poem. Crane spent several weeks there and roughed out a draft of the "Cape Hatteras" section, a key part of the epic poem. In late June that year, Crane returned from the south of France to Paris. Harry noted in his journal, "Hart C. back from Marseilles where he slept with his thirty sailors and he began again to drink Cutty Sark..." Crane, a heavy drinker since his early days in New York, got drunk at the Cafe Select and fought with waiters over his tab. When the Paris police were called, he fought with them and was beaten. They arrested and jailed him, fining him 800 francs. After six days in prison at La Santé
La Santé Prison
La Santé Prison is a prison operated by the Ministry of Justice located in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, France. It is one of the most famous prisons in France, with both VIP and high security wings....
, Harry Crosby paid Crane's fine and advanced him money for the passage back to the United States where he finally finished The Bridge.
In 1929, through bookstore owner Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach
Sylvia Beach , born Nancy Woodbridge Beach, was an American-born bookseller and publisher who lived most of her life in Paris, where she was one of the leading expatriate figures between World War I and II.-Early life:...
, they contacted James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
and arranged to print three of his stories that had already appeared in translation. They named the new book Tales Told of Shem and Shaun (which was later integrated into Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake
Finnegans Wake is a novel by Irish author James Joyce, significant for its experimental style and resulting reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the English language. Written in Paris over a period of seventeen years, and published in 1939, two years before the author's...
), for which they paid Joyce USD$2000 for 600 copies, unusually good pay for Joyce at that time. Their printer Roger Lescaret erred when setting the type, leaving the final page with only two lines. Rather than reset the entire book, he suggested to the Crosby's that they ask Joyce to write an additional eight lines to fill in the remainder of the page. Caresse refused, insisting that a literary master would never alter his work to fix a printer's error. Lescaret appealed directly to Joyce, who promptly wrote the eight lines requested. The first 100 copies of Joyce's book were printed on Japanese velum and signed by the author. It was hand-set in Caslon type and included an abstract portrait of Joyce by Constantin Brâncuşi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuşi was a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris...
, a pioneer of modernist abstract sculpture. Brâncuşi's drawings of Joyce became among the most popular images of him.
During the rest of 1929, they published fourteen works by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
, René Crevel
René Crevel
René Crevel was a French writer involved with the surrealist movement.-Life:Crevel was born in Paris to a family of Parisian bourgeoisie. He had a traumatic religious upbringing. At the age of fourteen, during a difficult stage of his life, his father committed suicide by hanging himself. Crevel...
, T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, and Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
among others. The Crosbys also published early works by newly emerging writers including Ramon Sartoris, Julian Levy, and Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
.
Beautiful books in limited editions
The books they published were "beautifully bound, hand set books." One of their most beautiful books was the was the Hindu Love Manual which they first found while on holiday in DamascusDamascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
. They reprinted it in October 1928, printing only 20 copies. Bound in navy blue leather, the cover was stamped with gold to reflect the style of ancient Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
manuscripts. The inside pages were printed on handmade paper colored a distinctive shade of gray and decorated with a gold border. Each illustration in every copy was hand-colored.
Their books were generally published in small numbers, usually less than 500 copies, sometimes as few as 10 or 20. They were "marked by clean lines, sharp typeface, and fine inks and papers." Some editions were published first as a "limited" edition, usually numbered and autographed, showcased with detailed design and costly materials, followed by a less expensive "trade" edition. Most were issued in slipcases. They published Les Liaisons Dangereuses with illustrations by Alastair
Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)
thumb|Illustration from [[Harry Crosby]]'s book Red Skeletons published in 1927.Alastair was a German artist, composer, dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator. Mysterious, flamboyant, enigmatic and attractive to many people, he was born of German nobility in Karlsruhe. In his youth he joined...
. The cover was red-purple cloth with gilt lettering; it contained 14 engravings on color plates, with tissue guards, and numerous in-text illustrations.
In 1929, they published Harry Crosby's volume of verse, Mad Queen, which showed the influence of Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and which included withering attacks on Bostonian tradition. Apart from his obsession with the sun, his writing increasingly contained references to dissolution and suicide. He viewed death as violent, quick, and liberating.
Affair and suicide
On July 9, 1928, Harry met 20 year old Josephine Noyes Rotch, ten years his junior, and began a troublesome affair with her. She had been known around Boston as "fast, a 'bad egg'...with a good deal of sex appeal." Josephine would inspire Crosby's next collection of poems which he dedicated to her, titled Transit of Venus. Josephine married Albert Smith Bigelow on until June 21, 1929, but Harry and Josephine rekindled their affair within a few weeks. Unlike his wife Caresse, Josephine was quarrelsome and prone to fits of jealousy. She bombarded Harry with half incoherent cables and letters, anxious to set the date for their next tryst.Visit to United States
In December 1929, the Crosbys returned to the United States for a visit and the Harvard-Yale football game. Harry and Josephine went to Detroit and checked into the expensive ($12 a day) Book-Cadillac Hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Crane. For four days they took meals in their room, smoked opium, and made love. On December 7 the lovers returned to New York. That evening Crosby's friend Hart CraneHart Crane
-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
threw a party to celebrate his completion after seven years of his poem, The Bridge
The Bridge (long poem)
The Bridge, first published in 1930 by the Black Sun Press, is Hart Crane's first, and only, attempt at a long poem. The Bridge was inspired by New York City's "poetry landmark", the...
, which was to be published by the Black Sun Press, and to bid Harry and Caresse bon voyage, since they were due to sail back to France the next week. The party went on until nearly dawn, and Harry and Caresse made plans to see Crane again on December 10 to see the play Berkeley Square before they left for Europe.
On December 9, Josephine, who instead of returning to Boston had stayed with one of her bridesmaids in New York, sent a 36-line poem to Harry Crosby, who was staying with Caresse at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel. The last line of the poem read:
On the same day, Harry Crosby wrote his final entry in his journal:
Lovers found dead
On the evening of December 10, 1929, Harry was a no-show for dinner before the theater. Caresse called their friend Stanley Mortimer, whose studio Harry was known to use for his trysts. Stanley found Harry and Josephine's bodies. Harry had a .25 caliber bullet hole in his right temple and lay with his arm around Josephine, who had a matching hole in her left temple, in what appeared to be a suicide pactSuicide pact
A suicide pact is an agreed plan between two or more individuals to commit suicide. The plan may be to die together, or separately and closely timed. Suicide pacts are important concepts in the study of suicide, and have occurred throughout history, as well as in fiction.Suicide pacts are generally...
.
Scandal follows
The next day the headlines revealed all: Tragedy and Disgrace. As Josephine had died at least two hours before Harry, and there was no suicide note, newspapers ran articles for many days speculating about the murder or suicide pact. The New York Times front page blared, "COUPLE SHOT DEAD IN ARTISTS' HOTEL; Suicide Compact Is Indicated Between Henry Grew Crosby and Harvard Man's Wife. BUT MOTIVE IS UNKNOWN He Was Socially Prominent in Boston—Bodies Found in Friend's Suite." The New York newspapers decided it was a murder-suicide.Harry's poetry possibly gave the best clue to his motives. Death was "the hand that opens the door to our cage the home we instinctively fly to." His manner of death mortified proper Boston society.
Caresse continues publishing
After Harry Crosby's suicide, Caresse dedicated herself to the Black Sun Press. She published the first edition of Hart CraneHart Crane
-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
's book-length poem The Bridge
The Bridge (long poem)
The Bridge, first published in 1930 by the Black Sun Press, is Hart Crane's first, and only, attempt at a long poem. The Bridge was inspired by New York City's "poetry landmark", the...
, replete with tipped-in photographs of the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
taken by Walker Evans
Walker Evans
Walker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...
, his public debut.
She followed that by releasing a "collected Crosby"—four books that reprinted earlier collections. One of these collections had been originally introduced by D. H. Lawrence. To accompany it, Caresse solicited essays for the other three from T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Stuart Gilbert. Caresse published two volumes of Harry Crosby's poetry, Chariot of the Sun and Transit of Venus. He had dedicated the latter volume to his lover, Josephine Rotch Bigelow.
In 1943, during the Second World War, she designed and published the first English-language edition of the surrealist collaboration betweenMax Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
and Paul Eluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
book, Misfortunes of the Immortals, first published in 1920. Translated by Hugh Chisholm
Hugh Chisholm
Hugh Chisholm was a British journalist, and editor of the 11th and 12th editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica....
, it featured newly added content, "Three Drawings Twenty Years Later", by Ernst. Due to limited availability of quality paper during war-time, it was printed by handset letterpress at the Gemor Press, on "exceptionally cheap wartime newsprint."
The Black Sun Press broadened its scope after Harry's death. Although it published few works after 1952, it printed James Joyce's Collected Poems in 1963. It did not officially close until Caresse's death on January 24, 1970 at age 78.
She had also established, with Jacques Porel, a side venture, Crosby Continental Editions, which published paperback books by European writers including Alain Fournier
Alain Fournier
Alain Fournier was a computer graphics researcher.- Biography :Alain Fournier was born on November 5, 1943 in Lyon, France. He was married twice, first to Beverly Bickle and later to Adrienne Drobnies, with whom he had one daughter, Ariel.Fournier's early training was in chemistry, culminating in...
, Charles-Louis Philippe
Charles-Louis Philippe
Charles-Louis Philippe, French novelist, was born in Cérilly, Allier, Auvergne, on 4 August 1874, and died in Paris on 21 December 1909.- Life :...
, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry , officially Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, comte de Saint Exupéry , was a French writer, poet and pioneering aviator. He became a laureate of France's highest literary awards, and in 1939 was the winner of the U.S. National Book Award...
, Paul Eluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
, George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
, C. G. Jung and Americans like Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, William Faulkner
William Faulkner
William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
, and Kay Boyle, among others. Her paperback books, an innovative product in the 1930s, were not well received, and she closed the press in 1933.
Reputation
The Black Sun Press is not given the attention it deserves in most literary history because of the relatively short time period during which they published, and because they were seen as "frivolous interlopers" in the serious world of literature, what antiquarian books expert and actor Neil PearsonNeil Pearson
Neil Joshua Pearson is a British actor best known for his work on television.-Biography:Pearson grew up in Battersea, London, the son of a panel beater, who left home when he was five, and a legal secretary, and was educated at Woolverstone Hall School, Suffolk, a boarding school, where he first...
and others have called dilettantes.
Later value
The quality and rarity of the books published by the Black Sun Press places them in high demand by collectors. A first edition of The Bridge by Hart Crane in near fine condition was priced at USD$ (about €) in 2010 by Royal Books. Only 100 copies were made when Editions Narcisse, later the Black Sun Press, printed in 1928 The Birthday of the Infanta by Oscar Wilde, with illustrations by AlastairAlastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)
thumb|Illustration from [[Harry Crosby]]'s book Red Skeletons published in 1927.Alastair was a German artist, composer, dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator. Mysterious, flamboyant, enigmatic and attractive to many people, he was born of German nobility in Karlsruhe. In his youth he joined...
. A fine copy was offered in New York during 2010 by Hugh Anson-Cartwright Fine Books for USD$ (or about €).
A near-fine copy of the first English-language edition of Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
's and Paul Eluard
Paul Éluard
Paul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
's book, Misfortunes of the Immortals, which Caresse published in 1943, was offered for sale in 2010 by Derringer Books for £ (about € or $).
Works
The Black Sun Press published the following works.1927, 1928
- Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
: The Fall of the House of UsherThe Fall of the House of Usher"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque...
1927. Published by Editions Narcisse. - Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
: L'Anniversaire de L'Infante (Birthday of the Infanta) 1928. Nine illustrations by AlastairAlastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt)thumb|Illustration from [[Harry Crosby]]'s book Red Skeletons published in 1927.Alastair was a German artist, composer, dancer, mime, poet, singer and translator. Mysterious, flamboyant, enigmatic and attractive to many people, he was born of German nobility in Karlsruhe. In his youth he joined...
Published by Editions Narcisse. - D. H. LawrenceD. H. LawrenceDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
: Sun 1928. Drawing by Lawrence.
1929
- Kay BoyleKay BoyleKay Boyle was an American writer, educator, and political activist.- Early years :The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio...
: Short Stories 1929. Paris. First edition published by Editions Narcisse. Limited edition of 165 copies. 15 copies printed on Japanese paper and signed; 150 numbered copies on Holland Van Gelder Zonen paper. - Robert Carlton Brown: 1450-1930 1929.
- Laurence SterneLaurence SterneLaurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy 1929. Illustrations by Polia Chentoff. Published by Editions Narcisse. - Archibald MacLeishArchibald MacLeishArchibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. He is associated with the Modernist school of poetry. He received three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.-Early years:...
: Einstein 1929. - Eugene JolasEugene JolasJohn George Eugene Jolas was a writer, translator and literary critic.-Biography:Eugene Jolas was born in Union City, New Jersey, but grew up in Forbach in Elsass-Lothringen , to which his family returned when he was two years old. He spent periods of his adult life living in both the U.S...
: Secession in Astropolis 1929. Paris; New York. Limited edition of 135 copies. - Choderlos De Laclos: Les Liaisons DangereusesLes Liaisons dangereusesLes Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos, first published in four volumes by Durand Neveu from March 23, 1782....
1929. Illustrations by Alastair (Baron Hans Henning Voigt). - Harry CrosbyHarry CrosbyHarry Crosby was an American heir, a bon vivant, poet, publisher, and for some, epitomized the Lost Generation in American literature. He was the son of one of the richest banking families in New England, a member of the Boston Brahmin, and the nephew of Jane Norton Grew, the wife of financier J....
: Mad Queen 1929. Tirades; frontispiece by Caresse Crosby. - Lord LymingtonGerard Wallop, 9th Earl of PortsmouthGerard Vernon Wallop, 9th Earl of Portsmouth , styled Viscount Lymington from 1925 until 1943, was a British landowner, writer on agricultural topics, and politician.-Early life:...
: Spring Song of Iscariot 1929. - James JoyceJames JoyceJames Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
: Tales Told of Shem and Shaun 1929. Three Fragments from Work in Progress (later Finnegan's Wake). - D. H. LawrenceD. H. LawrenceDavid Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
: The Escaped CockThe Escaped CockThe Escaped Cock is a short novel by D. H. Lawrence that was originally written in two parts and published in 1929. Lawrence wrote the first part in 1927 after visiting some Etruscan tombs with his friend Earl Brewster, a trip that encouraged the author to reflect upon death and myths of...
1929. - Harry Crosby: Transit of Venus 1929. Paris. With a preface by T.S. Eliot. Limited edition of 570 copies printed by Harry Crosby from Dorique type. 20 lettered copies printed on Japanese vellum; 50 numbered copies on Holland paper; 500 copies on uncut Navarre.
1930
- Marcel ProustMarcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
: 47 Lettres inedites a Walter Berry 1930. Proust's letters to Walter Van Rensselaer Berry (1859–1927). French and English. - Lewis CarrollLewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
: Alice in Wonderland 1930. Included six full-page color lithographs by Marie LaurencinMarie LaurencinMarie Laurencin was a French painter and printmaker. -Biography:Laurencin was born in Paris, where she was raised by her mother and lived much of her life. At 18, she studied porcelain painting in Sèvres...
. Numbered limited edition of 350 copies on Rives printed for United States, with a total edition of 790. - Ezra PoundEzra PoundEzra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
: Imaginary Letters 1930. Paris. Limited edition of 375 copies. Fifty numbered and signed copies were printed on Japanese Vellum; 300 copies numbered 51-350 were printed on Navarre paper; and 25 copies hors commerce. - Archibald MacLeish; New Found Land 1930. Fourteen Poems.
- Harry Crosby: Shadows of the Sun 1930. Series Three.
- Hart CraneHart Crane-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...
The BridgeThe Bridge (long poem)The Bridge, first published in 1930 by the Black Sun Press, is Hart Crane's first, and only, attempt at a long poem. The Bridge was inspired by New York City's "poetry landmark", the...
1930. Featured three photographs by Walker EvansWalker EvansWalker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...
, his debut. Paris. Limited edition of 283 copies, 200 numbered copies on Holland paper, 50 numbered copies on Japanese vellum signed by the author, 25 review copies hors commerce and, 8 special copies marked A to H.
1931, 1932
- Caresse Crosby Poems for Harry Crosby 1931.
- Charles-Louis PhilippeCharles-Louis PhilippeCharles-Louis Philippe, French novelist, was born in Cérilly, Allier, Auvergne, on 4 August 1874, and died in Paris on 21 December 1909.- Life :...
Bubu of Montparnasse 1932. - Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
In Our Time 1932. - William FaulknerWilliam FaulknerWilliam Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...
SanctuarySanctuary (novel)Sanctuary is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It is considered one of his more controversial, given its theme of rape. First published in 1931, it was Faulkner's commercial and critical breakthrough, establishing his literary reputation...
1932. Modern Masterpieces in English - Raymond RadiguetRaymond RadiguetRaymond Radiguet was a French author whose two novels were noted for their explicit themes and writing style and tone.-Early life:...
The Devil in the FleshLe Diable au corps (novel)Le Diable au corps is an early 1923 novel by Parisian literary prodigy Raymond Radiguet. The story of a young married woman who has an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy while her husband is away fighting at the front provoked scandal in a country that had just been through World War I...
1932. Paris: Crosby Continental Editions. Translated by Kay BoyleKay BoyleKay Boyle was an American writer, educator, and political activist.- Early years :The granddaughter of a publisher, Kay Boyle was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in several cities but principally in Cincinnati, Ohio...
, with an introduction by Aldous HuxleyAldous HuxleyAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
. Published by the Black Sun Press. Printed by F. Paillart, Paris. - T. S. EliotT. S. EliotThomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
What Famous Authors Say About Crosby Editions 1932. - Kay Boyle Year Before Last 1932.
- Robert McAlmonRobert McAlmonRobert Menzies McAlmon was an American author, poet and publisher.-Life:McAlmon was born in Clifton, Kansas, the youngest of ten children of an itinerant Presbyterian minister....
The Infinite Huntress and Other Stories 1932. Paris: Crosby Continental Editions. Modern Masterpieces in English, number 10. Published by the Black Sun Press and printed by F. Paillart, Paris-Abbeville.
1936–1948
- George GroszGeorge GroszGeorg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
: Interregnum. 1936. Introduction by John Dos PassosJohn Dos PassosJohn Roderigo Dos Passos was an American novelist and artist.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dos Passos was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos , a distinguished lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison Sprigg Madison of Petersburg, Virginia. The elder Dos Passos...
. - James Joyce Collected Poems 1936.
- Julien Levy: Surrealism 1936. With artwork by Joseph CornellJoseph CornellJoseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
. - Paul EluardPaul ÉluardPaul Éluard, born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel , was a French poet who was one of the founders of the surrealist movement.-Biography:...
Misfortunes of Immortals 1943. Illustrated by Max ErnstMax ErnstMax Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
. Handset in Sparten twelve point type and printed at the Gemar Press. - Ramon Sartoris Three Plays 1944.
- Pietro LazzariPietro LazzariPietro Lazzari was an Italian artist and sculptor.An influential sculptor, painter, illustrator and printmaker Pietro Lazzari received his formal education from the Ornamental School of Rome . After the end of the First World War Lazzari joined the Italian Futurist movement and exhibited with such...
: Horses [1945]. 4 leaves of plates (art) - Charles BukowskiCharles BukowskiHenry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles...
Twenty Tanks from Kasseldown 1946 (broadside) - Charles OlsonCharles OlsonCharles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
: Y & X. Poems by Charles Olson, drawings by Corrado CagliCorrado CagliCorrado Cagli was an Italian painter of Jewish heritage, who lived in the USA during World War II.Cagli was born in Ancona, but in 1915 moved with his family to Rome....
. Washington, D.C., 2nd edition, 1950.