Hart Crane Papers
1909-1937

BIOGRAPHY

       Harold Hart Crane was born at Garretsville, Ohio on 21 July 1899 He went to New York City to become a poet but was often without money. After failing in New York Crane became a writer of advertising copy in Cleveland until he returned to the East in the spring of 1923. Eventually Allen Tate and Waldo Frank recognized his poetic abilities. With the help of Otto Kahn he was able to continue his long poem The Bridge as an answer to Eliot's The Waste Land. His masetrwork was published in 1930 but by that time his nerves and drinking had reduced his capacity to function. He sailed for Mexico in the spring of 1931 with hopes of writing a poem on the Conquest. However sinking into depression he decided to return to New York. After an evening of heavy drinking he jumped off the ship from Vera Cruz to New York and drowned.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

Correspondence, manuscripts, and memorabilia of the American poet, Hart Crane, range in date over most of his active life. This collection includes over 500 letters written by Crane to members of his family and close friends and received by him from his family and prominent contemporary authors (Eugene O'Neill, Sherwood Anderson, T. S. Eliot, Alfred Steiglitz, Waldo Frank, Allan Tate, etc.). Among these is a group of letters written to his mother upon Crane's death. There is correspondence and documents relating to his books, The Bridge, White Buildings, and The Collected Poems. Also present are most of the original manuscripts of Crane's major works ("The Bridge," "White Buildings," "West Indies Poems," etc) with corrections and additions in Crane's hand. Included here are a number of drafts of poems of his earlier period. The is also a copy of the 16mm. motion picture "In Search of Hart Crane."

In addition there is one box of notes by Jethro Robinson relating to his Ph.D. dissertation, as well as a large group of photographs taken by Crane in Mexico with inscriptions and identifications in his hand and a group of Crane's scrapbooks, family photographs and mementoes. Accompanying the collection is a group of books from Hart Crane's library many of which are signed copies and a group of periodical material which relates to Crane.