The Cramoisy Queen: A Life of Caresse Crosby

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The Cramoisy Queen: ALifeof Caresse Crosby LindaHamalian The Cramoisy Queen: A Life of Caresse Crosby Biography / Women’s Studies “Caresse Crosby . . . was a major influence on much of the most important writing in English produced in the twentieth century, and as such fully warrants this biography that succeeds so assiduously in avoiding mere hyperbole to tell the story of a most unusual, talented, brilliant woman.” —The Literary Review “Better than reading Fitzgerald, for the dazzling and complicated world of artists and expats in the twenties and thirties, The Cramoisy Queen also guides us through the post–World War II forties, the fifties, and the swinging sixties to follow the escapades that accompanied Caresse Crosby’s life at Black Sun Press and beyond.” —Diane Wakoski, author of The Butcher’s Apron Caresse Crosby rejected the culturally prescribed roles for women of her era and background in search of an independent, creative, and socially responsible life. Poet, memoirist, advocate of women’s rights and the peace movement, Crosby published and promoted modern writers and artists such as Hart Crane, Dorothy Parker, Salvador Dalí, and Romare Bearden. She also earned a place in the world of fashion by patenting one of the earliest versions of the brassiere. As the first biographer to consider both the literary and social contexts of Crosby’s life, Linda Hamalian details Crosby’s professional accomplishments and her personal struggles. Enhanced by thirty-two illustrations, The Cramoisy Queen: A Life of Caresse Crosby also measures the impact of small presses on modernist literature and draws connections between key writers and artists of the era. Linda Hamalian is a professor of English at William Paterson University. She is the author of A Life of Kenneth Rexroth and coeditor of Solo: Women on Woman Alone. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY PRESS 1915฀university฀press฀drive mail฀code฀6806 carbondale,฀il฀62901 www.siu.edu/~siupress Cover photo: Caresse Crosby and her dog, Narcisse Noir, 1925. Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Printed in the United States of America $17.95 USD ISBN 0-8093-2901-8 ISBN 978-0-8093-2901-4 ...