Did You Know: Stephen Crane

“But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And Because it is my heart.” 

– Stephen Crane

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Stephen Crane’s was a Jersey boy and one of eight children to his Methodists parents who were both writers. He started writing at the age of four and was published by the age of 16.  He published The Red Badge of Courage in 1895 without any war experience. He is considered America’s earliest Naturalists and wrote in the Realist tradition. Blah blah blah… Lets get to the good stuff shall we?

Stephen Crane? More Like Stephen Cray. This guy was the cross dressing best friend of Joseph Conrad who stuck up for prostitutes, had a serious relationship with a madam, and contracted tuberculosis in a life raft while stranded at sea only before dying at the age of 28 in a spa. Shall I divulge? …

Crane’s first novel Maggie, written at the age of 22 (age 22!…what did you do today?), was too real for publishers. It is about a really poor girl who becomes a prostitute and kills her self. Its incredibly dark and heavy themes were a slap in the face for people, who were used to cushy Romanticism,  and was greatly scrutinized. Crane is notorious for writing in this fashion. He writes a short sketch called “Experiment in Misery” that is incredibly honest and real. How real was it? Well, Crane dresses up as a tramp and stays in a flop house to do research (d.e.d.i.c.a.t.i.o.n.). See- cross dressing (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Crane hung out with Joseph Conrad and even hosted Conrad, Henry James and H.G. Wells for Christmas in 1899. He had some sort of serious romatic relationship with the madam of the Hotel de Dream; Jacksonville Florida’s “most elegant sporting house” (that’s a brothel y’all). His relationship with Cara (Lady Stewart) Crane is a little hazy. She took his last name but they were never legally married. Crane also was a part of another scandal when he acted “as a witness for a suspected prostitute”. So, in good company this guy had a thing for ladies employed in the worlds oldest profession. Sounds like a fun guy.

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Stephen and Cora Crane

Crane met Cora while in Florida waiting to board a ship headed to Cuba where he was sent on a journalist assignment in 1896. The boat he was traveling on was shipwrecked and Crane was stranded off the coast of Florida on a life raft until rescued. Crane’s The Open Boat was based on this experience. It is speculated that Crane barely survived this ordeal and his untimely contraction of tuberculosis is the consequence of his time on the shipwrecked dinghy. Stephen Crane died at the age of 28 from tuberculosis in Germany at a spa he took refuge at in order to nurse himself.

 

  Fun random fact #1: he liked to write stuff in all caps.

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Fun random fact #2: he was on the album cover of The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s.

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Fun random parting thought: MUSTACHE CHAMPION!

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Did You Know: Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty, and was of Irish and French descent. While her tombstone reads that she was born in 1851, Kate Chopin’s baptismal certificate states that she was born February 8th, 1850. The Library of Congress did not accept the corrected date until September, 2009. Her father died when she was only 5, and she was raised by her mother, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother. She grew up bilingual and had an interest in music as well as literature. She married Oscar Chopin in 1870 and they had 6 children. Unfortunately, Oscar Chopin died just 12 years later of malaria, leaving Kate to raise the 6 children and run his general store. In 1885, her mother died. Due to the lost of her husband and mother, Chopin fell into a depression, and it was recommended by her obstetrician that she take up writing as it was considered therapeutic. In 1889, she began publishing short stories, and her first novel, The Fault, was published privately in 1890. What is now considered her greatest work, The Awakening, was published in 1899 and most critics gave it negative reviews. In 1904, Chopin was attending the St. Louis World’s Fair and suffered from a brain hemorrhage. She died two days later on August 22, 1904. In 1990, Kate Chopin was posthumously awarded with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and she received a bronze bust at the Writer’s Corner in St. Louis, in 2012.

Did You Know: Charles Chesnutt

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Charles Waddell Chesnutt (1858-1932) was an influential author best known for his short stories and novels that explored racism and identity in the South after the Civil War. Chesnutt was a man of mixed race and although he could easily pass as a white man because he was seven-eighths white, he identified as African American. He was educated at Howard School and he taught at Fayetteville State University. In 1878, Chesnutt married Susan Perry and they moved to New York City  to enable him to pursue his writing career. He began by writing stories that were published by famous magazines. After such successes he published two collections of short stories in 1899. The first is entitled The Conjure Woman  and the second is entitled The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line. A few years later after establishing his reputation, he wrote several novels and toured on the national lecture circuit. Three of his stories were actually adapted in film, two of which were completed before he died in 1932.

Did You Know: Mark Twain

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“My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.”
– Notebook, 1885

Do you know Mark Twain? Do you know him really? He is a famous American author, of course, but did you know that he was an advocate for change? Did you know that he constantly expressed his views against slavery, racism, and animal cruelty? Did you know he loved cats and was rumored to have at least nineteen in his childhood home? Did you know he had psychic tendencies?

It may have been written in the stars that America would receive an author literary greats like William Faulkner would come to call “the Father of American Literature.” With Halley’s Comet soaring through the sky, Samuel Clemens was born November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Not long after his birth, Clemens started on the path to becoming a writer. Following the death of his father, at the mere age of eleven, Samuel Clemens quit school and began working for the Hannibal Journal as a printer’s apprentice. As a young man, Clemens certainly upheld the idea of the American dream; taking his right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to heart, Clemens journeyed through the states hoping to make a name for himself. He collected the soil of America in his shoes, walked through big cities like Philadelphia and New York City, wrote articles for the newspapers there, worked on the Mississippi River as a steamboat pilot, and traveled west to Nevada hoping to strike silver and get rich. His adventures through America had a profound affect on his writing career, shaping books such as Roughing It and even influencing the creation of the name that would join the great authors in the American canon.

During his time on the Mississippi River, Clemens founded the pen name that now sparks a sense of recognition in every student of American Literature; in ship lingo “mark twain” translates into smooth sailing, specifically meaning that the water is two fathoms or twelve feet deep. It was also during his time as a steamboat captain that Clemens aka Twain showed his psychic side by claiming to have a dream of his brother’s death before it happened.

Twain’s most known works followed the discovery of his famous pen name as his The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876),  The Prince and the Pauper (1881), Life on the Mississippi (1883), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889), were published after his marriage to Olivia Langdon. During those years of writing his greatest books, Twain and his wife, Olivia, had three daughters Clara, Jean, and Susy. Despite having a period of financial stability and success following the publication of his most famous works, Twain became bankrupt after constantly investing in dead end inventions. However, Twain was not disheartened by his lack of cash and stuck to his true nature as an advocate for change and innovation; he continued to speak and write passionately about subjects such as slavery, racism, and animal cruelty. Though many call his works such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn racist for its use of derogatory language, Twain was very much an advocate for the abolition of slavery and openly spoke against racism.

Mark Twain’s psychic abilities appeared once more in 1909, a year before his death. He was rumored to tell people, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet.” Eerily enough, Halley’s comet made an appearance when Twain died of a heart attack on the tenth of April, 1910. 

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Links:

http://biography.yourdictionary.com/articles/facts-about-mark-twain.html

http://childrensatheneum.blogspot.com/2010/04/50-facts-about-mark-twain.html

https://www.marktwainhouse.org/man/biography.php

http://www.twainquotes.com/Literature.html

Walt Whitman: Didn’t You Know?

Who was born 1819 in the northeast and was working at a printer’s office by the age of 12? Who began in journalism and success and turned deliberately to poetry, which he revised until his deathbed? Who lamented and crystalized a moment in history with “Oh Captain My Captain!” a poem on the death of Abraham Lincoln? Who is not often confused with Slim Whitman, the yodeling country music star whose song is best known for Mars Attack! where it makes the aliens brains explode? Walt Whitman, of course!

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.”

Whitman began his career in journalism in the 1840s. In 1841 he wrote “Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate: A Tale of The Times” a temperance novel. Whitman remarked that it was his worst book, but intended for the people and not the critics.  Nonetheless it plays to Whitman’s anti-alcohol sensibilities.  After leaving the northeast for New Orleans in 1848, Whitman was exposed to the more terrifying societal ill of slavery, and his writing would never be the same.

Influenced, both personally and literarily, by Ralph Emerson, Whitman turned to poetry. He began writing “Leaves of Grass” his most celebrated collection of poetry, in 1850 and self-published it in 1855. Whitman would continue to revise and rewrite the collection, periodically publishing new versions, until his deathbed. Elemental to Whitman’s writing is his indifference towards conventional meter and rhyme, his egalitarian worldview (and opposition to the extension of slavery), and frank sexual references. Scholars enjoy debating Whitman’s homosexuality, but one only needs to glance at his beautimus transcendental poetry to know why he has been welcomed into the American canon.

Did You Know: Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau was born in 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts. At the age of 16 Thoreau attended Harvard. His older brother, John who was a teacher, helped him pay for his tuition. While in Harvard he was introduced to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who became his main influence. In 1842 he was traumatized with the death of his brother, John. After that he worked for his father for a time until 1845 when he went to Walden Pond and built a cabin on land that was owned by Emerson. Thoreau lived in the woods at Walden Pond for two years, two months and two days before he returned to Concord to work with his father again. While back in Concord, Thoreau rewrote his most known work, Walden, seven times before attempting to publish it. Also, in the 1850s, Thoreau was known to be an antislavery activist; he also looked after night passengers of the Underground Railroad who passed through Concord. Henry David Thoreau died in 1862 at the age of 44 from tuberculosis.

“Writing your name can lead to writing sentences. And the next thing you’ll be doing is writing paragraphs, and then books. And then you’ll be in as much trouble as I am.” –Henry David Thoreau.

Did You Know: Frederick Douglass

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Frederick Douglass
1818-1895

“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”

Are you familiar with the name ‘Frederick Douglass’? I’m assuming you’ve heard the name at least once or twice (unless you claim to know him personally, in which case we should question your health) but to what extent are you knowledgable of the many hats Frederick Douglass wore in his lifetime? Did you know him as the slave? The husband? The orator? The writer? The social reformer? Or maybe even as the candidate for Vice Presidency of the United States of America? Let’s find out how much you know:

Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was born in February in Easton, Maryland, 1818. His mother was an enslaved black woman who worked in the field for Holme Hill Farm. As an infant, Douglass was separated from his mother and knew very little of his father; there is a theory that Douglass’s father was also his master, a white man by the name Captain Aaron Anthony. Douglass’s mother passed away when he was seven years old. Alone and abandoned by his grandmother, Douglass was sent to work on a plantation cousin to the one he was born on. Although he born into slavery, Douglass was taught how to read and eventually began secretly writing “free passes” for runaway slaves.

At the age of 20, in 1838, Douglass disguised himself as a sailor and escaped from Baltimore to New York City. Douglass eventually traveled to New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was here that Douglass changed his name from Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to Frederick Douglass, a name inspired by a character in Scott’s Lady of the Lake. During this time, Douglass married Anne Murray and began his freed life working as a day laborer; attending anti-slavery meetings in his spare time.

Douglass composed many autobiographies illustrating his life in slavery and spoke in favor of women’s rights as well as supported equality among blacks and whites. In August of 1841, Douglass was appointed an agent of the Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass lectured anti-slavery addresses throughout New England, Ireland, Scotland and England. Dlass composed many autobiographies illustrating his life in slavery and spoke in favor of women’s rights as well as supported equality among blacks and whites.

Frederick Douglass is recognized as one of the most successful orators and activists in America; dedicating his life to fight for justice and equality. In 1872, Frederick Douglass was nominated for Vice President of the United States as a member of the Equal Rights Party.

 

 

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Information Gathered from the following websites:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html
http://www.nrcc.org/2013/06/19/8-interesting-facts-about-frederick-douglass/
http://www.loop21.com/politics/12-facts-about-frederick-douglas-black-history-month-2013
http://www.nndb.com/people/447/000048303/

Did You Know: Herman Melville (by Kristen Barbour)

When one considers the canon of American literature, one cannot forget to mention Herman Melville, writer of Moby Dick, the epic sea-tale concerning a great white whale. Melville was born 1819 in New York City and spent most of his childhood in Albany as well as Pittsfield, Massachusetts. When he was 21, Melville and a shipmate deserted their ship at the Marquesas Islands and spent a summer living with the islanders of Tapai Valley. This experience inspired his first novel, Typee, and consequently gained him the title, “man who lived among the cannibals.” Melville’s Typee and the several novels published after it were in general, well received both by the public in England and America. It wasn’t until he undertook the task of writing Moby Dick that his writing career altered considerably.

Melville intended for Moby Dick to be a spiritual and political allegory and wanted to present voyage as a metaphor for philosophical journey in the same manner he did with his third novel, Mardi, despite how poorly it did. In a letter to his literary friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville expressed his vision of Moby Dick as a “Gospels in this century.” Written in stages, Melville knew that his novel, when finished, would not be received well nor would it be able to financially support him. However, Melville felt compelled to finish the novel even though its publication did in fact ruin his reputation as a writer for the rest of his life.

After Moby Dick and the publication of his novel Pierre, which further drove his literary career into the ground on the grounds that he was also insane, Melville began writing anonymously for monthly newspapers in order to financially sustain his family. And for some time he also gave lectures across the southeast. During the last few decades of Melville’s life, he wrote poetry, of which he published two volumes. He died in 1891 leaving unfinished Billy Budd, Sailor. It wasn’t until 1919 that Melville achieved the recognition for Moby Dick and literary prominence we grant him today.

By: Kristen Barbour

Did You Know: Emily Dickinson

When you hear the name Emily Dickinson, you may think of a woman’s silhouette in window who spent her days alone in her home writing poems and reading her Bible regularly. While it is true that she was a religious recluse who seldom left her home in Amherst, Massachusetts, she was not afraid to let her hair down and be in the world on occasion. In her youth, Emily Dickinson attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, Massachusetts, now known as Mount Holyoke College. She only spent one year at the religious institution from 1847-1848 due to either homesickness or poor health, historians dispute her reasonings to this day, but historians are sure that this is when her reclusive lifestyle began. Soon after, Dickinson came out of her reclusive lifestyle for her hearts sake. She fell in love and  became engaged to a young man named, George Gould, a reverend studying at the nearby Amherst College. Unfortunately, George Gould and Emily Dickinson would never walk down the aisle. Dickinson’s father, Edward Dickinson, a lawyer and politician well known in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, disapproved of Rev. Gould and forbid him from marrying his daughter, Emily, because he came from humbler origins than the wealthy Dickinson family. This left Emily Dickinson heartbroken and it was then that she retreated back into her reclusive lifestyle. Later in life though,  she met again with her first love Rev. Gould on a trip she took to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he was practicing his ministry and was married. After this meet, the Reverend and his long, lost love, Emily, carried with a love affair that remained secret from his wife and her family. Thus the Belle of Amherst, was not as innocent as people believed that she was. Indeed she was a recluse but even in her solitary state, she was not afraid to push the boundaries of the world outside of her home and within her heart.