1950 Original MARILYN MONROE Israel PHOTO BOOK FRONT COVER Hebrew MOVIE Film

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Seller: judaica-bookstore ✉️ (2,803) 100%, Location: TEL AVIV, IL, Ships to: WORLDWIDE, Item: 285707191809 1950 Original MARILYN MONROE Israel PHOTO BOOK FRONT COVER Hebrew MOVIE Film. [1] She continues to be considered a major popular culture icon. The work led to two short-lived film contracts withTwentieth Century-Fox (1946–47) and Columbia Pictures (1948). After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in 1951. DESCRIPTION :  The Israeli publishers of the 1950's PULP Hebrew edition of 3 stories by Stephen Crane ( Maggie: A Girl of the Streets  ) and Katherine Mansfield have picked the nice classic photographed image of MARILYN MONROE wearing a BRA or an underwear SLIP to the FRONT COVER.  Very rare and almost impossible to find.  The publishing era is 1950's . MARILYN MONROE wrapper . 4.5 x 6.5". 122 pp. Good condition. Used. Tightly bound. A few imperfections in cover are nicely mended : Back cover and spine , A small missing corner in front wrapper.  ( Pls watch the scan for reliable AS IS images ). Will be sent inside a protective rigid packaging .

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Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson, June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962) was an American actress and model. Famous for playing "dumb blonde" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s, emblematic of the era's attitudes towards sexuality. Although she was a top-billed actress for only a decade, her films grossed $200 million by the time of her unexpected death in 1962.[1] She continues to be considered a major popular culture icon.[2] Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage and married for the first time at the age of sixteen. While working in a factory as part of the war effort in 1944, she met a photographer and began a successful pin-up modeling career. The work led to two short-lived film contracts withTwentieth Century-Fox (1946–47) and Columbia Pictures (1948). After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in 1951. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. Monroe faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photos before becoming a star, but rather than damaging her career, the story increased interest in her films. By 1953, Monroe was one of the most bankable Hollywood stars, with leading roles in three films: the noir Niagara, which focused on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". Although she played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, she was disappointed at being typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project, but returned to star in one of the biggest box office successes of her career, The Seven Year Itch (1955). When the studio was still reluctant to change her contract, Monroe founded a film production company in late 1954, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP). She dedicated 1955 to building her company and began studying method acting at the Actors Studio. In late 1955, Fox gave her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. After giving a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and acting in the first independent production of MMP, The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), she won aGolden Globe for Best Actress for Some Like It Hot (1959). Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961). Monroe's troubled private life received much attention. She struggled with addiction, depression, and anxiety. She had two highly publicized marriages, to baseball player Joe DiMaggio and playwright Arthur Miller, which both ended in divorce. She died at the age of 36 from an overdose of barbiturates at her home in Los Angeles on August 5, 1962. Although the death was ruled a probable suicide, several conspiracy theories have been proposed in the decades following her death. Contents  [hide]  1 Life and career 1.1 Childhood and first marriage (1926–44) 1.2 Modeling and first film roles (1945–49) 1.3 Breakthrough (1950–52) 1.4 Rising star (1953) 1.5 Conflicts with 20th Century-Fox and marriage to Joe DiMaggio (1954–55) 1.6 Critical acclaim and marriage to Arthur Miller (1956–59) 1.7 Final films and personal difficulties (1960–62) 2 Death 3 Public image and reception 4 Legacy 5 Filmography 6 Notes 7 References 8 Sources 9 External links Life and career Childhood and first marriage (1926–44) A 1955 copy of Monroe's birth certificate, listing her name as Norma Jeane Mortenson Monroe was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926, as the third child of Gladys Pearl Monroe (1902–84), a negative-cutter at Columbia Pictures.[3] Gladys' older children, Robert (1917–33)[4]and Berniece (born 1919), were from her first marriage to John Newton Baker in 1917–23.[5] After she had filed for divorce in 1921, Baker had taken the children with him to his native Kentucky.[6] Monroe was not told that she had a sister until she was 12, and met her for the first time as an adult.[7] Gladys then married Martin Edward Mortensen in 1924, but they separated after only a few months and before she became pregnant with Monroe; they divorced in 1928.[8] The identity of Monroe's father is unknown.[9][a] During her childhood, Mortenson, Mortensen and Baker were all used as her surnames.[13] Gladys was mentally and financially unprepared for a child, and so placed Monroe with foster parents in Hawthorne, California, soon after the birth.[14] Albert and Ida Bolender were evangelical Christians and raised their foster children accordingly.[15] At first, Gladys lived with the Bolenders to care for the infant herself, until longer work shifts forced her to move back to Hollywood in early 1927.[16] She then began visiting her daughter on the weekends and planned on taking her back once she felt more stable.[17]Gladys was prompted to do this in June 1933, and within months bought a small house on Arbol Drive near the Hollywood Bowl, which they shared with lodgers, actors George and Maude Atkinson.[18] Only some months later in early 1934, Gladys had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized.[19] She was diagnosed withparanoid schizophrenia and was institutionalized at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk in 1935.[20] She spent the rest of her life in and out of hospitals, and was only occasionally in contact with Monroe.[21] "When I was five I think, that's when I started wanting to be an actress. I loved to play. I didn't like the world around me because it was kind of grim, but I loved to play house. It was like you could make your own boundaries... When I heard that this was acting, I said that's what I want to be... Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it."[22] —Monroe in an interview for Life in 1962 Monroe was declared a ward of the state, and one of her mother's friends, Grace McKee Goddard, took responsibility over her and her mother's affairs.[23] She lived with the Atkinsons on Arbol Drive until June 1935; she would later recount being sexually abused by a lodger when she was eight years old.[24][b] She then briefly stayed with Grace and her husband Erwin "Doc" Goddard and two other families,[30] until being placed in the Los Angeles Orphans Home in September 1935.[31] Grace became her legal guardian in 1936, and took Monroe out of the orphanage in June 1937.[32] She lived with the Goddards only until November as Doc molested her,[32] and in the following ten months stayed with her and Grace's relatives and friends in Los Angeles and Compton.[33] Monroe found a more permanent home in September 1938, when she began living with Grace's aunt, Ana Atchinson Lower, in West Los Angeles.[34] She was enrolled in Emerson Junior High School and was taken to weekly Christian Science services with Lower.[35] Due to the elderly Lower's health issues, Monroe returned to live with the Goddards in Van Nuys in either late 1940 or early 1941.[36]After graduating from Emerson, she began attending Van Nuys High School.[37] In early 1942, the company that Doc Goddard worked for required him to relocate to West Virginia.[38] California laws prevented the Goddards from taking Monroe out of state, and she faced the possibility of having to return to the orphanage.[39] As a solution, it was decided that she would marry the neighbors' 21-year-old son, James "Jim" Dougherty, a worker at the Lockheed Corporation.[40] Biographers disagree on whether they had already been dating or whether the marriage was entirely arranged by Grace.[41] They married on June 19, 1942, just after Monroe had turned 16, and she subsequently dropped out of high school.[40] She disliked being a housewife and later stated that the "marriage didn't make me sad, but it didn't make me happy, either. My husband and I hardly spoke to each other. This wasn't because we were angry. We had nothing to say. I was dying of boredom."[42] In 1943, Dougherty enlisted in the Merchant Marine.[43] He was initially stationed on Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California, where she lived with him until he was shipped out to the Pacific in April 1944; he would remain there for most of the next two years.[43] After Dougherty left for the Pacific, Monroe moved in with his parents and began working at the Radioplane Munitions Factory as part of the war effort.[43] Modeling and first film roles (1945–49) Monroe photographed byDavid Conover while she was still working at the Radioplane factory in late 1944 In late 1944, Monroe met photographer David Conover, who had been sent by the U.S. Army Air Forces' First Motion Picture Unit(FMPU) to the factory to shoot morale-boosting pictures of female workers.[44] Although none of her pictures were used by the FMPU, she quit working at the factory in January 1945 and began modeling for Conover and his friends.[45][46] He also encouraged her to apply to the Blue Book Model Agency, run by Emmeline Snively, to which she was signed in August 1945.[47] She began to occasionally use the name Jean Norman when working, and had her curly brunette hair straightened and dyed blond to make her more employable.[48] As her figure was deemed more suitable for pin-up than fashion modeling, she was employed mostly for advertisements and men's magazines.[49] According to Snively, Monroe was one of the agency's most ambitious and hard-working models; by early 1946, she had appeared on 33 magazine covers for publications such as Pageant, U.S. Camera, Laff, andPeek.[50] Impressed by her success, Snively arranged a contract for Monroe with an acting agency in June 1946.[51] Through it, she met Ben Lyon, a 20th Century-Fox executive, who gave her a screen test. Head executive Darryl F. Zanuck was unenthusiastic about it,[52]but he was persuaded to give her a standard six-month contract to avoid her being signed by rival studio RKO Pictures.[c] Monroe began her contract in August 1946, and together with Lyon selected the screen name of "Marilyn Monroe".[54] The first name was picked by Lyon, who was reminded of Broadway star Marilyn Miller; the last was picked by Monroe after her mother's maiden name.[55] In September 1946, she was granted a divorce from Dougherty, allowing her to concentrate on her acting career.[56] Monroe in a studio publicity photo taken when she was a contract player at 20th Century-Fox in 1947. She appeared in two small film roles during the contract and was let go after a year. Monroe had no film roles during the first months of her contract and instead dedicated her days to acting, singing and dancing classes.[57] Eager to learn more about the film industry and to promote herself, she also spent time at the studio lot to observe others working.[58] Her contract was renewed in February 1947, and she was soon given her first two film roles: nine lines of dialogue as a waitress in the drama Dangerous Years (1947) and a one-line appearance in the comedyScudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948).[59][d] The studio also enrolled her in the Actors' Laboratory Theatre, an acting school teaching the techniques of the Group Theatre.[61] Monroe's contract was not renewed in August 1947, and she returned to modeling.[62] She continued taking classes at the Actors' Lab, and in October appeared as a blonde vamp in the short-lived play Glamour Preferred at the Bliss-Hayden Theater, but the production was not reviewed by any major publication.[63] Monroe landed her next film contract in March 1948, this time with Columbia Pictures.[64] According to biographers Donald Spoto, Anthony Summers and Lois Banner, it was arranged for her by Fox executive Joseph M. Schenck, whose mistress she was at the time, and who was friends with Columbia's head executive, Harry Cohn.[65] At Columbia, Monroe began working with the studio's head drama coach, Natasha Lytess, who would remain her mentor until 1955, and had some changes made to her appearance: her hairline was raised by electrolysis and her hair was bleached even lighter, to platinum blond.[64] Her only film at the studio was the low-budget musical Ladies of the Chorus (1948), in which she had her first starring role as a chorus girl who is courted by a wealthy man.[60] During the production, she began an affair with her vocal coach, Fred Karger, who paid to have her slight overbite corrected.[66] Despite the starring role, Monroe's contract was not renewed.[67] Ladies of the Chorus was released in October and was not a success.[68] After leaving Columbia in September 1948, Monroe became a protégée of Johnny Hyde, vice president of the William Morris Agency. Hyde began representing her and their relationship soon became sexual, although she refused his proposals of marriage.[69] To advance Monroe's career, he paid for a silicone prosthesis to be implanted in her jaw and possibly for a rhinoplasty, and arranged a bit part in the Marx Brothers film Love Happy (1950).[70] Monroe also continued modeling, and in May 1949 posed for nude photos taken by Tom Kelley.[71] Although her role in Love Happy was very small, she was chosen to participate in the film's promotional tour in New York that year.[72] Breakthrough (1950–52) Monroe as gangster's moll Angela in John Huston's The Asphalt Jungle(1950), one of her first performances to be noted by the critics Monroe appeared in six films released in 1950. She had bit parts in Love Happy, A Ticket to Tomahawk, Right Cross andThe Fireball, but also made minor appearances in two critically acclaimed films: John Huston's crime film The Asphalt Jungle and Joseph Mankiewicz's drama All About Eve.[73] In the former, Monroe played Angela, the young mistress of an aging criminal.[74] Although only on the screen for five minutes, she gained a mention in Photoplay and according to Spoto "moved effectively from movie model to serious actress".[74] In All About Eve, Monroe played Miss Caswell, a naïve young actress.[75] Following Monroe's success in these roles, Hyde negotiated a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox in December 1950.[76] He died of a heart attack only days later, leaving her devastated.[77] Despite her grief, 1951 became the year in which she gained more visibility. In March, she was a presenter at the 23rd Academy Awards and in September, Collier'sbecame the first national magazine to publish a full-length profile of her.[78] She had supporting roles in four low-budget films: in the MGM drama Home Town Story, and in three moderately successful comedies for Fox, As Young as You Feel,Love Nest, and Let's Make It Legal.[79] According to Spoto all four films featured her "essentially [as] a sexy ornament", but she received some praise from critics: Bosley Crowther of The New York Times described her as "superb" in As Young As You Feel and Ezra Goodman of the Los Angeles Daily News called her "one of the brightest up-and-coming [actresses]" for Love Nest.[80] To develop her acting skills, Monroe began taking classes withMichael Chekhov.[81] Her popularity with audiences was also growing: she received several thousand letters of fan mail a week, and was declared "MissCheesecake of 1951" by the army newspaper Stars and Stripes, reflecting the preferences of soldiers in the Korean War.[82] In her private life, Monroe was in a relationship with director Elia Kazan, and also briefly dated several other men, including directors Nicholas Ray and Yul Brynner and actor Peter Lawford.[83] The second year of the Fox contract saw Monroe become a top-billed actress, with gossip columnist Florabel Muir naming her the year's "it girl" and Hedda Hopperdescribing her as the "cheesecake queen" turned "box office smash".[84][85] In February, she was named the "best young box office personality" by the Foreign Press Association of Hollywood,[86] and began a highly publicized romance with retired New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio, one of the most famous sports personalities of the era.[87] The following month, a scandal broke when she revealed in an interview that she had posed for nude pictures in 1949, which were featured in calendars.[88] The studio had learned of the photographs some weeks earlier, and to contain the potentially disastrous effects on her career, they and Monroe had decided to talk about them openly while stressing that she had only posed for them in a dire financial situation.[89] The strategy succeeded in getting her public sympathy and increased interest in her films: the following month, she was featured on the cover of Life as "The Talk of Hollywood".[90] Monroe added to her reputation as a new sex symbol with other publicity stunts that year, such as wearing a revealing dress when acting as Grand Marshal at the Miss America Pageant parade, and by stating to gossip columnist Earl Wilson that she usually wore no underwear.[91] With co-star Keith Andesin Clash by Night (1952). The film allowed Monroe to display more of her acting range in a dramatic role. Monroe appeared in three commercially successful films in mid-1952.[92] The first was Fritz Lang's drama Clash by Night, for which she was loaned to RKO and featured in an atypical role as a fish cannery worker, allowing her to show more of her acting range.[93]Monroe received positive reviews for her performance: The Hollywood Reporter stated that "she deserves starring status with her excellent interpretation", and Variety wrote that she "has an ease of delivery which makes her a cinch for popularity".[94][95] She then starred as a beauty pageant contestant in the comedy We're Not Married! and as a mentally disturbed babysitter in the thrillerDon't Bother to Knock. According to its writer Nunnally Johnson, the former role was created solely to "present Marilyn in two bathing suits",[96] but the latter film was intended as a vehicle to show that she could act in heavier dramatic roles.[97] It received mixed reviews from critics, with Crowther deeming her too inexperienced for the difficult role,[98] and Variety blaming the script for the film's problems.[99][100] Monroe next played a secretary opposite Cary Grant in Howard Hawks' screwball comedy Monkey Business. Released in October, it was one of the first films to feature her as a "dumb, childish blonde, innocently unaware of the havoc her sexiness causes around her", marking the beginning of typecasting in her career.[101] Monroe's final film of the year was O. Henry's Full House, in which she had a minor role as a prostitute.[101] During this period Monroe gained a reputation for being difficult on film sets, which worsened as her career progressed: she was often late or did not show up at all, could not remember her lines, and would demand several re-takes before she was satisfied with her performance.[102] A dependence on her acting coaches, first Natasha Lytess and later Paula Strasberg, also irritated directors.[103] Monroe's problems have been attributed to a combination of perfectionism, low self-esteem, stage fright, and her gradually escalating use of barbiturates, amphetamines and alcohol, which most likely began during this period to aid with her anxiety and chronic insomnia.[104] The use of medication to assist sleeping and to provide energy was not unusual in the 1950s, and was reportedly very common in the film industry.[105] Rising star (1953) As Rose Loomis in the film noirNiagara (1953), which dwelled on her sex appeal Monroe starred in three movies released in 1953, emerging as a major sex symbol and one of Hollywood's most bankable performers.[106][107] The first of these was the Technicolor film noir Niagara, in which she played a femme fatale scheming to murder her husband, played by Joseph Cotten.[108] By then, Monroe and her make-up artist Allan "Whitey" Snyder had developed the make-up look that became associated with her: dark arched brows, pale skin, "glistening" red lips and a beauty mark.[109] According to Sarah Churchwell, Niagara was one of the most overtly sexual films of Monroe's career, and it included scenes in which her body was covered only by a sheet or a towel, considered shocking by contemporary audiences.[110] Its most famous scene is a 30-second long shot of Monroe shown walking from behind with her hips swaying, which was heavily used in the film's marketing.[110] Upon Niagara's release in January, women's clubs protested against it as immoral.[111] While Variety deemed it "clichéd" and "morbid", The New York Times commented that "the falls and Miss Monroe are something to see", as although Monroe may not be "the perfect actress at this point ... she can be seductive – even when she walks".[112][113] Monroe continued to attract attention with her revealing outfits in publicity events, most famously at the Photoplay awards in January 1953, where she won the "Fastest Rising Star" award.[114] She wore a skin-tight gold lamé dress, which prompted veteran star Joan Crawford to describe her behavior as "unbecoming an actress and a lady" to the press.[114] Performing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) While Niagara made Monroe a sex symbol and established her "look", her second film of the year, musical comedyGentlemen Prefer Blondes, established her star image as a "dumb blonde".[115] Based on Anita Loos' bestselling novel andits Broadway version, the film focuses on two "gold-digging" showgirls, Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw, played by Monroe and Jane Russell. The role of Lorelei was originally intended for Betty Grable, who had been 20th Century-Fox's most popular "blonde bombshell" in the 1940s; Monroe was fast eclipsing her as a star who could appeal to both male and female audiences.[116] As part of the film's publicity campaign, she and Russell pressed their hand and footprints in wet concrete outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in June.[117] Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was released shortly after and became one of the biggest box office successes of the year by grossing $5.3 million, more than double its production costs.[118] Crowther of The New York Times and William Brogdon of Variety both commented favorably on Monroe, especially noting her performance of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend"; according to the latter, she demonstrated the "ability to sex a song as well as point up the eye values of a scene by her presence".[119][120] With Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall in How to Marry a Millionaire(1953), her biggest box office success of the year In September, Monroe made her television debut in the Jack Benny Show, playing Jack's fantasy woman in the episode "Honolulu Trip".[121] Her third movie of the year, How to Marry a Millionaire, co-starred Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall and was released in November. It featured Monroe in the role of a naïve model who teams up with her friends to find rich husbands, repeating the successful formula of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It was the second film ever released in CinemaScope, a widescreen format which Fox hoped would draw audiences back to theaters as television was beginning to cause losses to film studios.[122] Despite mixed reviews, the film was Monroe's biggest box office success so far, earning $8 million in world rentals.[123] Monroe was listed in the annual Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll in both 1953 and 1954,[107] and according to Fox historian Aubrey Solomon became the studio's "greatest asset" alongside CinemaScope.[124] Monroe's position as a leading sex symbol was confirmed in December, when Hugh Hefner featured her on the cover and as centerfold in the first issue of Playboy.[125] The cover image was a shot of her at the Miss America Pageant parade in 1952, and the centerfold featured one of her 1949 nude photographs.[125] Conflicts with 20th Century-Fox and marriage to Joe DiMaggio (1954–55) With second husband Joe DiMaggio. They married in January 1954 and separated nine months later. Posing for soldiers in Korea after aUSO performance in February 1954, during her suspension by the studio Although Monroe had become one of 20th Century-Fox's biggest stars, her contract had not changed since 1950, meaning that she was paid far less than other stars of her stature and could not choose her projects or co-workers.[126] She was also tired of being typecast, and her attempts to appear in films other than comedies or musicals had been thwarted by Zanuck.[126] When she refused to begin shooting yet another musical comedy, a film version of The Girl in Pink Tights, which was to co-star Frank Sinatra, the studio suspended her on January 4, 1954.[127] The suspension was front page news and Monroe immediately began a publicity campaign to counter any negative press and to strengthen her position in the conflict. On January 14, she and Joe DiMaggio, whose relationship had been subject to constant media attention since 1952, were married at the San Francisco City Hall.[128] They then traveled to Japan, combining a honeymoon with his business trip.[129] From there, she traveled alone to Korea, where she performed songs from her films as part of a USO show for over 60,000 U.S. Marines over a four-day period.[130] After returning to Hollywood in February, she was awarded Photoplay's "Most Popular Female Star" prize.[131] She reached a settlement with the studio in March: it included a new contract to be made later in the year, and a starring role in the film version of the Broadway playThe Seven Year Itch, for which she was to receive a bonus of $100,000.[132] The following month saw the release of Otto Preminger's Western River of No Return, in which Monroe appeared oppositeRobert Mitchum. She called it a "Z-grade cowboy movie in which the acting finished second to the scenery and the CinemaScope process", although it was popular with audiences.[133] The first film she made after returning to Fox was the musical There's No Business Like Show Business, which she strongly disliked but the studio required her to do in exchange for dropping The Girl in Pink Tights.[132] The musical was unsuccessful upon its release in December, and Monroe's performance was considered vulgar by many critics.[134] Posing for photographers while filming the subway grate scene for The Seven Year Itch in September 1954 In September 1954, Monroe began filming Billy Wilder's comedy The Seven Year Itch, in which she starred opposite Tom Ewell as a woman who becomes the object of her married neighbor's sexual fantasies. Although the film was shot in Hollywood, the studio decided to generate advance publicity by staging the filming of one scene on Lexington Avenue in New York.[135] In it, Monroe is standing on a subway grate with the air blowing up the skirt of her white dress, which became one of the most famous scenes of her career. The shoot lasted for several hours and attracted a crowd of nearly 2,000 spectators, including professional photographers.[135] While the publicity stunt placed Monroe on front pages all over the world, it also marked the end of her marriage to DiMaggio, who was furious about it.[136] The union had been troubled from the start by his jealousy and controlling attitude; Spoto and Banner have also asserted that he was physically abusive.[137] After returning to Hollywood, Monroe hired famous attorney Jerry Giesler and announced that she was filing for divorce in October 1954.[138] The Seven Year Itch was released the following June, and grossed over $4.5 million at the box office, making it one of the biggest commercial successes that year.[139] After filming for Itch wrapped in November, Monroe began a new battle for control over her career and left Hollywood for the East Coast, where she and photographer Milton Greene founded their own production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions (MMP)  – an action that has later been called "instrumental" in the collapse of the studio system.[140][e] Monroe and Greene asserted that she was no longer under contract to Fox, as the studio had not fulfilled its duties, such as paying her the promised bonus for The Seven Year Itch.[142] This began a year-long legal battle between her and the studio.[143] The press largely ridiculed Monroe for her actions and she was parodied in Itch writer George Axelrod's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?(1955), in which her lookalike Jayne Mansfield played a dumb actress who starts her own production company.[144] With Tom Ewell in Billy Wilder's The Seven Year Itch, one of the most successful films of Monroe's career Monroe dedicated 1955 to studying her craft. She moved to New York and began taking acting classes with Constance Collier and attending workshops on method acting at the Actors Studio, run by Lee Strasberg.[145] She grew close to Strasberg and his wife Paula, receiving private lessons at their home due to her shyness, and soon became like a family member.[146] She dismissed her old drama coach, Natasha Lytess, and replaced her with Paula; the Strasbergs remained an important influence for the rest of her career.[147] Monroe also started undergoing psychoanalysis at the recommendation of Strasberg, who believed that an actor must confront their emotional traumas and use them in their performances.[148][f] To remain in the public eye, Monroe arranged publicity for herself throughout the year.[150][g] In her private life, she continued her relationship with DiMaggio despite the ongoing divorce proceedings while also dating actor Marlon Brando and playwright Arthur Miller.[151] She had first been introduced to Miller by Kazan in the early 1950s.[151] The affair between Monroe and Miller became increasingly serious after October 1955, when her divorce from DiMaggio was finalized, and Miller separated from his wife.[152] The studio feared that Monroe would be blacklisted and urged her to end the affair, as Miller was being investigated by the FBI for allegations of communism and had been subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee.[153] The FBI also opened a file on her.[154] Despite the risk to her career, Monroe refused to end the relationship, later calling the studio heads "born cowards".[155] By the end of the year, Monroe and Fox had come to an agreement about a new seven-year contract. It was clear that MMP would not be able to finance films alone, and the studio was eager to have Monroe working again.[143] The contract required her to make four movies for Fox during the seven years.[156] The studio would pay her $100,000 for each movie, and granted her the right to choose her own projects, directors and cinematographers.[156] She would also be free to make one film with MMP per each completed film for Fox.[156] Critical acclaim and marriage to Arthur Miller (1956–59) Monroe's dramatic performance as Chérie in Bus Stop (1956), a saloon singer with little talent, marked a departure from her earlier comedies. Monroe began 1956 by announcing her win over 20th Century-Fox, which prompted Time to call her a "shrewd businesswoman".[157] She also officially changed her name to Marilyn Monroe in March.[158] Her relationship with Miller prompted some negative comments from the press, including Walter Winchell's statement that "America's best-known blonde moving picture star is now the darling of the left-wing intelligentsia."[159] Monroe and Miller were married at the Westchester County Court in White Plains, New York on June 29, and two days later had a Jewish ceremony at his agent's house near Katonah, New York.[160] Monroe converted to Judaism with the marriage, which led Egypt to ban all of her films.[161][h] The media saw the union as mismatched given her star image as a "dumb blonde" and his position as an intellectual, as demonstrated by Variety's headline "Egghead Weds Hourglass".[163] The first film that Monroe made under the new contract was Bus Stop, released in August 1956. She played Chérie, a saloon singer whose dreams of stardom are complicated by a naïve cowboy who falls in love with her. For the role, she learnt an Ozark accent, chose costumes and make-up that lacked the glamour of her earlier films, and provided deliberately mediocre singing and dancing.[164] Broadway director Joshua Logan agreed to direct, despite doubting her acting abilities and knowing of her reputation for being difficult.[165] The filming took place in Idaho and Arizona in early 1956, and proceeded well after Logan adapted to her chronic lateness and perfectionism, and allowed her to run the production the way she wanted it.[166] Bus Stop became a box office success, grossing $4.25 million, and received mainly favorable reviews, with Crowther proclaiming: "Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress."[167]She received a Golden Globe for Best Actress nomination for her performance.[86] With third husband Arthur Miller at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, 1957 In August 1956, Monroe began filming MMP's first independent production, The Prince and the Showgirl, at Pinewood Studios in England.[168] It was based on Terrence Rattigan's The Sleeping Prince, a play about an affair between a showgirl and a prince in the 1910s. The main roles had first been played on stage by Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh; he reprised his role and directed and co-produced the film.[157] The production was complicated by conflicts between him and Monroe.[169] He angered her with the patronizing statement "All you have to do is be sexy", and by wanting her to replicate Leigh's interpretation.[170] He also disliked the constant presence of Paula Strasberg, Monroe's acting coach, on set.[171] In retaliation to what she considered Olivier's "condescending" behavior, Monroe started arriving late and became uncooperative, stating later that "if you don't respect your artists, they can't work well."[169] Her drug use increased and, according to Spoto, she became pregnant and miscarried during the production.[172] She also had arguments with Greene over how MMP should be run, including whether Miller should join the company.[172] Despite the difficulties, the film was completed on schedule by the end of the year.[173] It was released in June 1957 to mixed reviews, and proved unpopular with American audiences.[174] It was better received in Europe, where she was awarded the Italian David di Donatello and the French Crystal Star awards, and was nominated for a BAFTA.[175] After returning from England, Monroe took an 18-month hiatus from work to concentrate on married life on the East Coast. She and Miller split their time between New York and Roxbury, Connecticut, and spent the summer in Amagansett, Long Island.[176] She became pregnant in mid-1957, but it was ectopic and had to be terminated.[177] She suffered a miscarriage a year later.[178] Her gynecological problems were largely caused by endometriosis, a disease from which she suffered throughout her adult life.[179][i] During the hiatus, she dismissed Greene from MMP and bought his share of the company as they could not settle their disagreements.[182] With Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmonin Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot(1959), for which she won a Golden Globe Monroe returned to Hollywood in July 1958 to act opposite Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot. Although she considered the role of Sugar Kane another "dumb blonde", she accepted it due to Miller's encouragement and the offer of receiving ten percent of the film's profits in addition to her standard pay.[183] The difficulties of the film's production have since become "legendary".[184] Monroe would demand dozens of re-takes, and could not remember her lines or act as directed – Curtis famously stated that kissing her was "like kissing Hitler" due to the number of re-takes.[185] Many of the problems stemmed from a conflict with Wilder, who also had a reputation for being difficult, on how she should play the character.[186] Monroe made Wilder angry by asking him to alter many of her scenes, which in turn made her stage fright worse, and it is suggested that she deliberately ruined several scenes to act it her way.[186] In the end, Wilder was happy with Monroe's performance, stating: "Anyone can remember lines, but it takes a real artist to come on the set and not know her lines and yet give the performance she did!"[187] Despite the difficulties of its production, when Some Like It Hot was released in March 1959, it became a critical and commercial success.[188] Monroe's performance earned her a Golden Globe for Best Actress, and prompted Variety to call her "a comedienne with that combination of sex appeal and timing that just can't be beat".[175][189] It has been voted one of the best films ever made in polls by the American Film Institute and Sight & Sound.[190][191] Final films and personal difficulties (1960–62) After Some Like It Hot, Monroe took another hiatus from working until late 1959, when she returned to Hollywood to star in the musical comedy Let's Make Love, about an actress and a millionaire who fall in love when performing in a satirical play.[192] She chose George Cukor to direct and Miller re-wrote portions of the script, which she considered weak; she accepted the part solely because she was behind on her contract with Fox, having only made one of four promised films.[193] Its production was delayed by her frequent absences from set.[192] She had an affair with Yves Montand, her co-star, which was widely reported by the press and used in the film's publicity campaign.[194] Let's Make Love was unsuccessful upon its release in September 1960;[195] Crowther described Monroe as appearing "rather untidy" and "lacking ... the old Monroe dynamism",[196] and Hedda Hopper called the film "the most vulgar picture she's ever done".[197] Truman Capote lobbied for her to play Holly Golightly in a film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's, but the role went to Audrey Hepburn as its producers feared that Monroe would complicate the production.[198] With Clark Gable, Montgomery Cliftand Thelma Ritter in The Misfits. It was both Monroe's and Gable's last completed film. The last film that Monroe completed was John Huston's The Misfits, which Miller had written to provide her with a dramatic role.[199] She played a recently divorced woman who becomes friends with three aging cowboys, played by Clark Gable, Eli Wallach and Montgomery Clift. Its filming in the Nevada desert between July and November 1960 was again difficult.[200]Monroe and Miller's four-year marriage was effectively over, and he began a new relationship.[199] Monroe disliked that he had based her role partly on her life, and thought it inferior to the male roles; she also struggled with Miller's habit of re-writing scenes the night before filming.[201] Her health was also failing: she was in pain from gall stones, and her drug addiction was so severe that her make-up usually had to be applied while she was still asleep under the influence of barbiturates.[202] In August, filming was halted for her to spend a week detoxing in a Los Angeles hospital.[202] Monroe and Miller separated after filming wrapped, and she was granted a quick divorce in Mexico in January 1961.[203] The Misfits was released the following month, failing at the box office.[204] Its reviews were mixed,[204] with Bosley Crowther calling Monroe "completely blank and unfathomable" and stating that "unfortunately for the film's structure, everything turns upon her".[205]Despite the film's initial failure, in 2015 Geoff Andrew of the British Film Institute described it as a classic.[206] Monroe was next to star in a television adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's short story Rain for NBC, but the project fell through as the channel did not want to hire her choice of director, Lee Strasberg.[207] Instead of working, she spent a large part of 1961 preoccupied by health problems, undergoing surgery for her endometriosis and a cholecystectomy, and spending four weeks in hospital care – including a brief stint in a mental ward – for depression.[208][j] She was helped by her ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, with whom she had not been in contact since the finalization of their divorce in 1955; they now rekindled their friendship.[210] In early 1961, Monroe moved back to Los Angeles after six years in New York.[211] She began a relationship with Frank Sinatra, and in early 1962 purchased a house inBrentwood.[211] In one of her last photo shoots, by George Barris forCosmopolitan in July 1962 Monroe returned to the public eye in 1962; she received a "World Film Favorite" Golden Globe award in March and began to shoot a new film for 20th Century-Fox, Something's Got to Give, a re-make of My Favorite Wife (1940), in late April.[212] It was to be co-produced by MMP, directed by George Cukor and to co-star Dean Martin and Cyd Charisse.[213] Monroe was absent for the first two weeks of filming due to the flu; biographers have also attributed her absence to sinusitis or her ongoing drug addiction.[214] On May 19, she took a break from filming to sing "Happy Birthday" on stage at President John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration atMadison Square Garden in New York.[215] She drew attention with her costume: a beige, skintight dress covered in rhinestones, which made her appear nude.[215] Most of Monroe's biographers agree that she had an affair with Kennedy at some point in the last two years of her life, although they disagree on its length and timing.[216] Monroe next filmed a scene for Something's Got to Give in which she swam naked in a swimming pool.[217] To generate advance publicity, the press were invited to take photographs of the scene, which were later published in Life; this was the first time that a major star had posed nude while at the height of their career.[218] When she was again absent from set for several days, the studio fired her on June 7 and sued her for breach of contract, demanding $750,000 in damages.[219] She was replaced by Lee Remick, but after Martin refused to make the film with anyone other than Monroe, Fox sued him as well and shut down the production.[220]The studio publicly blamed Monroe's drug addiction and alleged lack of professionalism for the demise of the film, even claiming that she was mentally disturbed.[219][k] To counter the claims, Monroe engaged in several publicity ventures, including interviews for Life and Cosmopolitan and her first photo shoot for Vogue.[223] For Vogue, Monroe and photographer Bert Stern collaborated for two series of photographs, one a standard fashion editorial and another of her posing nude, which were both later published posthumously with the title The Last Sitting.[224] In the last weeks of her life, Monroe began negotiations with Fox about resuming filming on Something's Got to Give, and made plans for starring in What a Way to Go! (1964) and a biopic about Jean Harlow.[225] Death Main article: Death of Marilyn Monroe Front page of the New York Daily Mirror on August 6, 1962 Monroe was found dead in the bedroom of her Brentwood home by her psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, in the early morning hours of August 5, 1962. Greenson had been called there by her housekeeper Eunice Murray, who was staying overnight and had awoken at 3:00 a.m. "sensing that something was wrong". Murray had seen light from under Monroe's bedroom door, but had not been able to get a response and found the door locked.[226] The death was officially confirmed by Monroe's physician, Dr. Hyman Engelberg, who arrived at the house at around 3:50 a.m.[226] At 4:25 a.m., they notified the Los Angeles Police Department.[226] The Los Angeles County Coroners Office was assisted in their investigation by experts from the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Team.[227] It was estimated that Monroe had died between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m.,[228] and the toxicological analysis concluded that the cause of death was acute barbiturate poisoning, as she had 8 mg% of chloral hydrate and 4.5 mg% of pentobarbital (Nembutal) in her blood, and a further 13 mg% of pentobarbital in her liver.[229] Empty bottles containing these medicines were found next to her bed.[227] The possibility of Monroe having accidentally overdosed was ruled out as the dosages found in her body were several times over the lethal limit.[230] Her doctors and psychiatrists stated that she had been prone to "severe fears and frequent depressions" with "abrupt and unpredictable" mood changes, and had overdosed several times in the past, possibly intentionally.[230][231] Due to these facts and the lack of any indication of foul play, her death was classified a probable suicide.[232] Monroe's crypt at theWestwood Memorial Park Monroe's unexpected death was front-page news in the United States and Europe.[233] According to Lois Banner, "it's said that the suicide rate in Los Angeles doubled the month after she died; the circulation rate of most newspapers expanded that month",[233] and the Chicago Tribune reported that they had received hundreds of phone calls from members of the public requesting information about her death.[234] French artist Jean Cocteau commented that her death "should serve as a terrible lesson to all those, whose chief occupation consists of spying on and tormenting film stars", her former co-star Laurence Olivier deemed her "the complete victim of ballyhoo and sensation", and Bus Stop director Joshua Logan stated that she was "one of the most unappreciated people in the world".[235] Her funeral, held at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemeteryon August 8, was private and attended by only her closest associates.[236] It was arranged by Joe DiMaggio and her business manager Inez Melson.[236] Hundreds of spectators crowded the streets around the cemetery.[236] Monroe was later interred at crypt No. 24 at the Corridor of Memories.[237] Several conspiracy theories about Monroe's death have been proposed in the decades afterwards, including murder and accidental overdose.[238] The murder speculations first gained mainstream attention with the publication of Norman Mailer's Marilyn: A Biography in 1973, and in the following years became widespread enough for the Los Angeles County District Attorney John Van de Kamp to conduct a "threshold investigation" in 1982 to see whether a criminal investigation should be opened.[239] No evidence of foul play was found.[240] Public image and reception "I never quite understood it, this sex symbol. I always thought symbols were those things you clash together! That's the trouble, a sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing. But if I'm going to be a symbol of something I'd rather have it sex than some other things they've got symbols of."[241] —Monroe in an interview for Life in 1962 When beginning to develop her star image, 20th Century-Fox wanted Monroe to replace the aging Betty Grable, their most popular "blonde bombshell" of the 1940s.[242] While the 1940s had been the heyday of actresses perceived as tough and smart, such as Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Stanwyck, who appealed to women-dominated audiences, the studio wanted Monroe to be a star of the new decade that would draw men to movie theaters.[242] She played a significant part in the creation of her public image from the beginning, and towards the end of her career exerted almost full control over it.[243][244] Monroe was responsible for many of her publicity strategies, cultivated friendships with gossip columnists such as Sidney Skolsky and Louella Parsons, and controlled the use of her images.[245]Besides Grable, she was often compared to another iconic blonde, 1930s film star Jean Harlow.[246] The comparison was partly prompted by Monroe, who named Harlow as her childhood idol, wanted to play her in a biopic, and even employed Harlow's hair stylist to color her hair.[247] Monroe was also influenced by Mae West, stating: "I learned a few tricks from her – that impression of laughing at, or mocking, her own sexuality".[248] With Jane Russell at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in 1953 Monroe's star image centered on her blond hair, and the stereotypes associated with it, especially dumbness, sexual availability and artificiality.[249] Having begun her career as a pin-up model, this style carried over to her films, and she became noted for her hourglass figure.[250] Film scholar Richard Dyer has noted that Monroe was often positioned so that her curvy silhouette was on display, and in her publicity photos often posed like a pin-up.[250] Her distinctive, hip-swinging walk also drew attention to her body, earning her the nickname "the girl with the horizontal walk".[101] Monroe's clothing choices played an important part in her star image. She often wore white to emphasize her blondness, and drew attention by wearing revealing outfits that showed off her figure.[251] Her publicity stunts often revolved around her clothing exposing large amounts of her body or even malfunctioning, such as when one of the shoulder straps of her dress suddenly snapped during a press conference.[252] To emphasize her "innocence" and "dumbness", Monroe often used a breathy, childish voice in her films, and in interviews parodied herself with double entendres that came to be known as "Monroeisms".[253] For example, when she was asked whether she had anything on during the 1949 nude photo shoot, she replied, "I had the radio on".[254]She was portrayed as the embodiment of the American Dream, as a girl who had risen from a miserable childhood to Hollywood stardom.[255] Stories of her time spent in foster families and an orphanage were exaggerated and even partly fabricated in her studio biographies.[256]According to film scholar Thomas Harris, her working class roots and lack of family also made her appear more sexually available, "the ideal playmate", in contrast to her contemporary Grace Kelly, who was also marketed as an attractive blonde, but due to her upper-class background came to be seen as a sophisticated actress, unattainable for the majority of male viewers.[257] In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes(1953), one of the films that portrayed Monroe as a sexually attractive and naïve "dumb blonde" According to Dyer, Monroe became "virtually a household name for sex" in the 1950s and "her image has to be situated in the flux of ideas about morality and sexuality that characterised the fifties in America", such as Freudian ideas about sex, the Kinsey report (1953), and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique (1963).[258] According to him, Monroe's star image was created mainly for the male gaze as characterized in film roles where she generally played "the girl", who is defined solely by her gender.[259] Her roles were almost always chorus girls, secretaries, or models; occupations where "the woman is on show, there for the pleasure of men."[259] Dyer also sees Monroe as the first sex symbol to combine "naturalness" and sexuality, in contrast to the 1940s femme fatales.[260] This alleged artlessness and lack of shame about her sexuality was closely linked to her image as a dumb and vulnerable woman.[260] According to Norman Mailer, "Marilyn suggested sex might be difficult and dangerous with others, but ice cream with her."[261] Similarly, Molly Haskell has written that "she was the fifties fiction, the lie that a woman had no sexual needs, that she is there to cater to, or enhance, a man's needs."[262]She has also stated that before her death, Monroe was less popular with women than with men, as they "couldn't identify with her and didn't support her".[263] The importance of blondness to Monroe's star image has also been analyzed by film historians. Dyer has argued that platinum blonde hair became such a defining feature of her because it made her "racially unambiguous" and exclusively white, and that she should be seen as emblematic of racism in twentieth-century popular culture.[264] Lois Banner agrees that it may not be a coincidence that Monroe launched a trend of platinum blonde actresses at the same time as the Civil Rights Movement was beginning, but has also criticized Dyer, pointing out that in her highly publicized private life Monroe associated with people who were seen as "white ethnics", such as Joe DiMaggio (Italian-American) and Arthur Miller (Jewish).[265] According to Banner, she sometimes challenged prevailing racial norms in her publicity photographs; for example, in an image featured in Look in 1951, she was shown in revealing clothes while practicing with African-American singing coach Phil Moore.[266] As well as being a sex symbol, Monroe was perceived as a specifically American star, "a national institution as well known as hot dogs, apple pie, or baseball" according to Photoplay.[267] Historian Fiona Handyside writes that the French female audiences associated whiteness/blondness with American modernity and cleanliness, and so Monroe came to symbolize a modern, "liberated" woman whose life takes place in the public sphere.[268] Film historian Laura Mulvey has written of her as an endorsement for American consumer culture: If America was to export the democracy of glamour into post-war, impoverished Europe, the movies could be its shop window ... Marilyn Monroe, with her all American attributes and streamlined sexuality, came to epitomise in a single image this complex interface of the economic, the political, and the erotic. By the mid 1950s, she stood for a brand of classless glamour, available to anyone using American cosmetics, nylons and peroxide.[269] To profit from Monroe's popularity, 20th Century-Fox cultivated several lookalike actresses, including Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North.[270] Other studios also attempted to create their own Monroes: Universal Pictures with Mamie Van Doren,[271] Columbia Pictures with Kim Novak,[272] and Rank Organisation with Diana Dors.[273] Legacy See also: Marilyn Monroe in popular culture Monroe depicted with rock star John Lennon and composer Frédéric Chopin inBeppe Devalle's Guardandovi (2010) According to The Guide to United States Popular Culture, "as an icon of American popular culture, Monroe's few rivals in popularity include Elvis Presley and Mickey Mouse ... no other star has ever inspired such a wide range of emotions – from lust to pity, from envy to remorse."[274] The American Film Institute has named her the sixth greatest female screen legend in American film history, Smithsonian Institution included her on their list of "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time",[275] and both Variety and VH1 have placed her in the top ten in their rankings of the greatest popular culture icons of the twentieth century.[276][277] Hundreds of books have been written about Monroe, she has been the subject of films, plays, operas, and songs, and has influenced artists and entertainers such as Andy Warhol and Madonna.[278][279] She also remains a valuable brand:[280] her image and name have been licensed for hundreds of products, and she has been featured in advertising for multinational corporations such as Max Factor, Chanel, Mercedes Benz, and Absolut Vodka.[281][282] Monroe's enduring popularity is linked to her conflicted public image.[283] On the one hand, she remains a sex symbol, beauty icon and one of the most famous stars of classical Hollywood cinema.[284][285][286] On the other, she is also remembered for her troubled private life, unstable childhood, struggle for professional respect, and her death and the conspiracy theories surrounding it.[287]She has been written about by scholars and journalists interested in gender and feminism,[288] such as Gloria Steinem, Jacqueline Rose,[289] Molly Haskell,[290]Sarah Churchwell,[282] and Lois Banner.[291] Some, such as Steinem, have viewed her as a victim of the studio system.[288][292] Others, such as Haskell,[293]Rose,[289] and Churchwell,[282] have instead stressed Monroe's proactive role in her career and her participation in the creation of her public persona. Left panel from pop artist James Gill's painting Marilyn Triptych (1962) Due to the contrast between her stardom and troubled private life, Monroe is closely linked to broader discussions about modern phenomena such as mass media, fame, and consumer culture.[294] According to academic Susanne Hamscha, because of her continued relevance to ongoing discussions about modern society, Monroe is "never completely situated in one time or place" but has become "a surface on which narratives of American culture can be (re-)constructed", and "functions as a cultural type that can be reproduced, transformed, translated into new contexts, and enacted by other people".[294] Similarly, Banner has called Monroe the "eternal shapeshifter" who is re-created by "each generation, even each individual ... to their own specifications".[295] While Monroe remains a cultural icon, critics are divided on her legacy as an actress. David Thomson called her body of work "insubstantial"[296] and Pauline Kael wrote that she could not act, but rather "used her lack of an actress's skills to amuse the public. She had the wit or crassness or desperation to turn cheesecake into acting – and vice versa; she did what others had the 'good taste' not to do".[297] In contrast, according to Peter Bradshaw, Monroe was a talented comedian who "understood how comedy achieved its effects",[298] and Jonathan Rosenbaum stated that "she subtly subverted the sexist content of her material" and that "the difficulty some people have discerning Monroe's intelligence as an actress seems rooted in the ideology of a repressive era, when superfeminine women weren't supposed to be smart".[299] Filmography Main article: Marilyn Monroe performances and awards Dangerous Years (1947) Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) Ladies of the Chorus (1948) Love Happy (1949) A Ticket to Tomahawk (1950) The Asphalt Jungle (1950) All About Eve (1950) The Fireball (1950) Right Cross (1951) Home Town Story (1951) As Young as You Feel (1951) Love Nest (1951) Let's Make It Legal (1951) Clash by Night (1952) We're Not Married! (1952) Don't Bother to Knock (1952) Monkey Business (1952) O. Henry's Full House (1952) Niagara (1953) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) River of No Return (1954) There's No Business Like Show Business (1954) The Seven Year Itch (1955) Bus Stop (1956) The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) Some Like It Hot (1959) Let's Make Love (1960) The Misfits (1961) Something's Got to Give (1962) Notes Jump up^ While Gladys named Mortensen as Monroe's father in the birth certificate (although the name was misspelled),[10] biographers Fred Guiles and Lois Bannerhave stated that her father was most likely Charles Stanley Gifford, a co-worker with whom Gladys had an affair in 1925 and whose photograph she allegedly showed Monroe, telling her it was her father.[11] Although Donald Spoto agrees that Mortensen most likely was not Monroe's father, he does not believe that she had any certainty about her father's identity, and has stated that any of Gladys' male acquaintances in 1925 may have been the father.[12] Jump up^ Monroe spoke about the abuse to her biographers Ben Hecht in 1953–54 andMaurice Zolotow in 1960, and in interviews for Paris Match and Cosmopolitan.[25]Although she refused to name the abuser, Banner believes he was George Atkinson, as he was a lodger at Arbol Dr. and fostered Monroe when she was eight; Banner also states that Monroe's description of the abuser fits other descriptions of Atkinson.[26] Banner has argued that the abuse may have been a major causative factor in Monroe's later mental health problems, and has also noted that as the subject was taboo in mid-century United States, Monroe was unusual in daring to speak about it publicly.[27] Spoto does not mention the incident but states that Monroe was sexually abused by Grace's husband in 1937 and by a cousin while living with a relative in 1938.[28] Barbara Leaming believes that Monroe was truthful when speaking about enduring abuse aged eight, while earlier biographers Fred Guiles, Anthony Summers and Carl Rollyson have expressed some doubt over the factuality of the incident due to lack of evidence beyond Monroe's account.[29] Jump up^ RKO's owner Howard Hughes had expressed an interest in Monroe after seeing her on a magazine cover.[53] Jump up^ It has sometimes been erroneously claimed that Monroe appeared as an extra in other Fox films during this period, including Green Grass of Wyoming, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, and You Were Meant For Me, but there is no evidence to support this.[60] Jump up^ Monroe and Greene had first met and had a brief affair in 1949, and met again in 1953, when he photographed her for Look. She told him about her grievances with the studio, and Greene suggested that they start their own production company.[141] Jump up^ Monroe underwent psychoanalysis regularly from 1955 until her death in 1962. Her analysts were psychiatrists Margaret Hohenberg (1955–57), Anna Freud(1957), Marianne Kris (1957–61), and Ralph Greenson (1960–62).[149] Jump up^ These included riding an elephant at the Ringling Brothers Circus Charity Gala in Madison Square Garden, appearing with Greene and his wife Amy in the television program Person to Person, and attending the centennial celebrations ofBement, Illinois, the site of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.[150] Jump up^ Monroe identified with the Jewish people as a "dispossessed group" and wanted to convert to make herself part of Miller's family.[162] She was instructed by Rabbi Robert Goldberg, but according to Miller, he "sat with Marilyn for a couple of hours and that was it. I'm not religious, but she wanted to be one of us and that's why she took some instruction."[161] Her certificate of conversion states that she "was received into the Jewish faith on July 1, 1956."[161] Monroe referred to herself as a "Jewish atheist" and after her divorce from Miller, showed little interest in the religion aside from retaining some religious items.[161] Egypt also lifted her ban after the divorce was finalized in 1961.[161] Jump up^ It also caused her to experience severe menstrual pain throughout her life, necessitating a clause in her contract allowing her to be absent from work during her period, and required several surgeries.[179] It has sometimes been alleged that Monroe underwent several abortions, and that unsafe abortions made by persons without proper medical training would have contributed to her inability to maintain a pregnancy.[180] The abortion rumors began from statements made by Amy Greene, the wife of Milton Greene, but have not been confirmed by any concrete evidence.[181] Furthermore, Monroe's autopsy report did not note any evidence of abortions.[181] Jump up^ Monroe first admitted herself to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic in New York, at the suggestion of her psychiatrist Marianne Kris.[209] Kris later stated that her choice of hospital was a mistake: Monroe was placed on a ward meant for severely mentally ill people with psychosis, where she was locked in a padded celland was not allowed to move to a more suitable ward or to leave the hospital.[209]Monroe was finally able to leave the hospital after three days with the help of Joe DiMaggio, and moved to the Columbia University Medical Center, spending a further 23 days there.[209] Jump up^ Their version remained largely uncontested until 1990, when the surviving footage from Something's Got to Give was released, showing that when Monroe had turned up on set, she had been coherent and able to film several scenes.[221]According to a later statement by the film's producer Henry Weinstein, her dismissal was linked to the studio's severe financial problems and the inexperience of head executive Peter Levathes, rather than solely caused by her being difficult to work with.[222] Marilyn Monroe Biography Film Actress, Pin-up (1926–1962) 15.5K SHARES 3.6K 0 0 QUICK FACTS NAME Marilyn Monroe OCCUPATION Film Actress, Pin-up BIRTH DATE June 1, 1926 DEATH DATE August 5, 1962 PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles, California PLACE OF DEATH Los Angeles, California ORIGINALLY Norma Jeane Mortenson AKA Norma Mortenson Norma Jeane Baker FULL NAME Marilyn Monroe SYNOPSIS EARLY LIFE FAMED CAREER VIDEOS RELATED VIDEOS CITE THIS PAGE Actress Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become one of the world's biggest and most enduring sex symbols. She died of a drug overdose in 1962. IN THESE GROUPS FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO OVERDOSED USO ENTERTAINERS MYSTERIOUS DEATHS FAMOUS LEFTIES Show All Groups 1 of 5 « » QUOTES “Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.” —Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe - Mini Biography (TV-14; 4:11) A short biography of Marilyn Monroe who became the greatest sex symbol of all time. Her roles in films such as "Gentleman Prefer Blondes," made her a Hollywood icon. She died of an overdose on August 5, 1962. Synopsis Actress Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles, California. During her all-too-brief life, Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become one of the world's biggest and most enduring sex symbols. During her career, Monroe's films grossed more than $200 million. Monroe died of a drug overdose on A ugust 5, 1962, at only 36 years old. 48 GALLERY 48 Images Early Life Marilyn Monroe was born as Norma Jeane Mortenson (later baptized as Norma Jeane Baker) on June 1, 1926, in Los Angeles, California. During her all-too-brief life, Marilyn Monroe overcame a difficult childhood to become one of the world's biggest and most enduring sex symbols. She never knew her father, and once thought Clark Gable to be her father—a story repeated often enough for a version of it to gain some currency. However, there's no evidence that Gable ever met or knew Monroe's mother, Gladys, who developed psychiatric problems and was eventually placed in a mental institution. As an adult, Monroe would maintain that one of her earliest memories was of her mother trying to smother her in her crib with a pillow. Monroe had a half-sister, to whom she was not close; they met only a half-dozen times. Growing up, Monroe spent much of her time in foster care and in an orphanage. In 1937, a family friend and her husband, Grace and Doc Goddard, took care of Monroe for a few years. The Goddards were paid $25 weekly by Monroe's mother to raise her. The couple was deeply religious and followed fundamentalist doctrines; among other prohibited activities, Monroe was not allowed to go to the movies. But when Doc's job was transferred in 1942 to the East Coast, the couple could not afford to bring Monroe with them. At 7 years old, Monroe returned to a life in foster homes, where she was on several occasions sexually assaulted; she later said that she had been raped when she was 11 years old. But she had one way out—get married. She wed her boyfriend Jimmy Dougherty on June 19, 1942, at the age of 16. By that time, Monroe had dropped out of high school (age 15). A merchant marine, Dougherty was later sent to the South Pacific. Monroe went to work in a munitions factory in Burbank, California, where she was discovered by a photographer. By the time Dougherty returned in 1946, Monroe had a successful career as a model, and had changed her name to Marilyn Monroe in preparation for an acting career. She dreamt of becoming an actress like Jean Harlow and Lana Turner. Famed Career Monroe's marriage to Dougherty fizzled out as she focused more on her career. The couple divorced in 1946—the same year that Monroe signed her first movie contract. With the movie contract came a new name and image; she began calling herself "Marilyn Monroe" and dyed her hair blonde. But her acting career didn't really take off until the 1950s. Her small part in John Huston's crime drama The Asphalt Jungle (1950) garnered her a lot of attention. That same year, she impressed audiences and critics alike with her performance as Claudia Caswell in All About Eve, starring Bette Davis. She would soon become one of Hollywood's most famous actresses; though she wasn't initially considered to be star acting material, she later proved her skill by winning various honors and attracting large audiences to her films. In 1953, Monroe made a star-making turn in Niagara, starring as a young married woman out to kill her husband with help from her lover. The emerging sex symbol was paired with another bombshell, Jane Russell, for the musical comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). The film was a hit and Monroe continued to find success in a string of light comedic fare, such as How to Marry a Millionaire with Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall, There's No Business like Show Business (1954) with Ethel Merman and Donald O'Connor, and The Seven Year Itch (1955). "Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered." With her breathy voice and hourglass figure, Monroe became a much-admired international star, despite her chronic insecurities regarding her acting abilities. Monroe suffered from pre-performance anxiety that sometimes made her physically ill and was often the root cause of her legendary tardiness on films sets, which was so extreme that it often infuriated her co-stars and crew. "She would be the greatest if she ran like a watch," director Billy Wilder once said of her. "I have an aunt Minnie who's very punctual, but who would pay to see Aunt Minnie?" Throughout her career, Monroe was signed and released from several contracts with film studios. Tired of bubbly, dumb blonde roles, Monroe moved to New York City to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio. She returned to the screen in the dramatic comedy Bus Stop (1956), playing a saloon singer kidnapped by a rancher who has fallen in love with her. She received mostly praise for her performance.  In 1957, Monroe starred in The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, who also directed and produced the film. She often didn't show up for filming and her erratic behavior on set created a tense relationship with her co-stars, the crew and Olivier. The film received mixed reviews and was a box office hit in Britain, but not as popular in the United States. The troubled production was the backdrop for the 2011 film My Week with Marilyn, starring Michelle Williams as Monroe. In 1959, Monroe returned to familiar territory with the wildly popular comedySome Like It Hot, with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. She played Sugar Kane Kowalczyk, a singer who hopes to marry a millionaire in this humorous film, in which Lemmon and Curtis pretend to be women. They are on the run from the mob after witnessing the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and hide out with an all-girl orchestra featuring Monroe. Her work on the film earned her the honor of "Best Actress in a Comedy" in 1959, at Golden Globe Awards. Reunited with John Huston, Monroe starred opposite Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift in The Misfits (1961). Set in Nevada, this adventure drama features Monroe, who falls for Gable's cowboy but battles him over the fate of some wild mustangs. This was her last completed film. In 1962, Monroe was dismissed from Something's Got to Give—also starring Dean Martin—for missing so many days of filming. According to an article in The New York Times, the actress claimed that the absences were due to illness. Martin declined to make the film without her, so the studio shelved the picture. At the time, Monroe's professional and personal life seemed to be in turmoil. Her last two films, Let's Make Love (1960) and The Misfits (1961) were box office disappointments. "A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night." In her personal life, she had a string of unsuccessful marriages and relationships. Her 1954 marriage to baseball great Joe DiMaggio only lasted nine months (she wed playwright Arthur Miller from 1956 to 1961). On May 19, 1962, Monroe made her now-famous performance at John F. Kennedy's birthday celebration, singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President." Death and Legacy On August 5, 1962, at only 36 years old, Marilyn Monroe died at her Los Angeles home. An empty bottle of sleeping pills was found by her bed. There has been some speculation over the years that she may have been murdered, but the cause of her death was officially ruled as a drug overdose. There have been rumors that Monroe was involved with President John F. Kennedy and/or his brother Robert around the time of her death. Monroe was buried in her favorite Emilio Pucci dress, in what was known as a "Cadillac casket"—the most high-end casket available, made of heavy-gauge solid bronze and lined with champagne-colored silk. Lee Strasberg delivered a eulogy before a small group of friends and family. Hugh Hefner bought the crypt directly next to Monroe's, and Monroe's ex-husband, Joe DiMaggio, famously had red roses delivered to her crypt for the next 20 years. “She was the victim of ballyhoo and sensation — exploited beyond anyone’s means.” — Sir Laurence Olivier Monroe did not own a house until the last year of her life, and had surprisingly few possessions. One that she prized was an autographed photo of Albert Einstein, which included an inscription: "To Marilyn, with respect and love and thanks." During her career, Marilyn Monroe's films grossed more than $200 million. Today, she is still considered the world's most popular icon of sex appeal and beauty, and is remembered for her idiosyncratic sense of humor and sly wit; once asked by a reporter what she wore to bed, she replied, "Chanel Number 5." On another occasion, she was asked what she thought of Hollywood. "If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein," she replied. Monroe is also remembered for her romantic relationships with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, Yves Montand and director Elia Kazan, in addition to her three marriages. Monroe has been imitated over the years by a number of celebrities, including Madonna, Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani.  In 2011, several rarely seen photos of Marilyn Monroe were published in a book of photographs by famed photographer Sam Shaw. August 5, 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. Now more than a half century later, the world is still fascinated by her beauty and talent.Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is an 1893 novella by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). The story centers on Maggie, a young girl from the Bowery who is driven to unfortunate circumstances by poverty and solitude. The work was considered risqué by publishers because of its literary realism and strong themes. Crane – who was 22 years old at the time – financed the book's publication himself, although the original 1893 edition was printed under the pseudonym Johnston Smith. After the success of 1895's The Red Badge of Courage, Maggie was reissued in 1896 with considerable changes and re-writing. The story is followed by George's Mother. Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Themes 2.1 Alcoholism 2.2 Hypocrisy 2.3 Determinism 2.4 Naturalism 2.5 Gender and sexuality 2.6 Social class 3 Historical context 4 Main characters 5 Bibliography 5.1 Editions 5.2 Works of criticism 5.2.1 General 6 Notes 7 External links Plot summary[edit] The story opens with Jimmie, at this point a young boy, trying by himself to fight a gang of boys from an opposing neighborhood. He is saved by his friend, Pete, and comes home to his sister, Maggie, his toddling brother, Tommie, his brutal and drunken father, and mother, Mary Johnson. The parents terrify the children until they are shuddering in the corner. Years pass, Tommie and his father die as Jimmie hardens into a sneering, aggressive, cynical youth. He gets a job as a teamster, having no regard for anyone but firetrucks who would run him down. Maggie begins to work in a shirt factory, but her attempts to improve her life are undermined by her mother's drunken rages. Maggie begins to date Jimmie's friend Pete, who has a job as a bartender and seems a very fine fellow, convinced that he will help her escape the life she leads. He takes her to the theater and the museum. One night Jimmie and Mary accuse Maggie of "Goin to deh devil", essentially kicking her out of the tenement, throwing her lot in with Pete. Jimmie goes to Pete's bar and picks a fight with him (even though he himself has ruined other boys' sisters). As the neighbors continue to talk about Maggie, Jimmie and Mary decide to join them in badmouthing her instead of defending her. Later, Nellie, a "woman of brilliance and audacity" convinces Pete to leave Maggie, whom she calls "a little pale thing with no spirit." Thus abandoned, Maggie tries to return home but is rejected by her mother and scorned by the entire tenement. In a later scene, a prostitute, implied to be Maggie, wanders the streets, moving into progressively worse neighborhoods until, reaching the river, she is followed by a grotesque and shabby man. The next scene shows Pete drinking in a saloon with six fashionable women "of brilliance and audacity." He passes out, whereupon one, possibly Nellie, takes his money. In the final chapter, Jimmie tells his mother that Maggie is dead. The mother exclaims, ironically, as the neighbors comfort her, "I'll forgive her!" Themes[edit] Alcoholism[edit] Crane uses alcohol to continue a cycle of poverty that the characters cannot break from. Through alcoholism, Joseph Brennan believes that Crane demonstrates that the characters' fates are all inevitable and that their lives cannot be changed.[1] While all the inhabitants of the Bowery drink excessively throughout the book, Crane uses Maggie's mother as a main depiction of the destructive power of alcohol. In her drunken rages, Mary Johnson is described as incredibly violent, abusing Maggie and breaking everything around her.[1] Don Dingledine suggests Mary's drunken actions hinder Maggie's attempts to move up in the world and crush her hopes of doing so.[2] Dingledine sees this in Maggie's attempt to improve her life and rise above her situation, as Maggie decorates and hangs a lambrequin, hoping to attract and impress Pete.[2] Yet, Maggie's attempts to beautify her surroundings prove futile as Mary destroys the curtain while drunk and angry.[2] Then, she publicly condemns her daughter, while inebriated, for her immoral actions with a man, thus isolating Maggie from the community.[2] Brennan agrees arguing that Mary's drunken actions alienate Maggie, pushing her to Pete and her life on the street.[1] Hypocrisy[edit] Hypocrisy is prevalent throughout Maggie, as Maggie is faced with hypocritical judgments by her family who hold different standards for her than they do for themselves. Dingledine argues that Maggie's mother drives Maggie away and into the arms of Pete.[2] She then publicly condemns her daughter, further driving Maggie to her demise. Yet, after Maggie's death she displays her grief loudly.[2] Mary's hypocrisy is also displayed with her physical aggression. During one of her violent and drunken tantrums, she threatens to beat her children with shoes.[2] Then, after Maggie's death, Mary holds onto Maggie's baby shoes sentimentally, directly contradicting her aggression toward Maggie while alive.[2] At the same time, Brennan argues that Crane displays hypocrisy when Jimmie avidly voices his displeasure with Maggie's relationship with Pete and condemns Pete for seducing his sister, although Jimmie seduces women himself and casts them off when he is done.[1] Brennan writes that both Mary and Jimmie are the driving forces of Maggie's prostitution, but condemn her when she becomes one, blind to their own faults and part in her downfall.[1] Determinism[edit] In Maggie, Don Dingledine believes Crane employs determinism, a theory that everything happening to individuals in the world has already been determined or predestined.[2] Crane uses this theory through demonstrating that Maggie and those around her cannot escape the poverty of living in the Bowery.[2] Paul Stasi adds that according to the theory of determinism, Maggie's poverty, downfall and death are inevitable, and her environment becomes her identity.[3] Since Maggie receives no love from her mother or society, she seeks a better life with Pete.[3] However, her attempts to improve her circumstances fall to pieces as she inevitably cannot succeed, pushing her farther into poverty and into prostitution and showing that her hope is inevitably false.[3] Jordan Von Cannon emphasizes that while her beauty allows her to stand out from the other inhabitants of the Bowery, she cannot move social classes because she is predestined by her environment to remain in her class.[4] Maggie is represented as forced by her environment into prostitution rather than by sexual desires; prostitution is not a choice.[4] Marcus Cunliffe explains that Maggie depicts an environment which shapes lives without permission.[5] Paul Stasi adds that this philosophy of determinism is evident in the style of Crane's writing as well.[3] Crane begins every chapter in Maggie with a wide-scale scene description, giving readers a bird’s eye perspective which eliminates individuality in the Bowery, showing the residents only as a collective whole.[3] This style of writing reinforces the idea that Maggie is not an individual who can move from her life in the Bowery.[3] Naturalism[edit] Maggie is "regarded as the first work of unalloyed naturalism in American fiction."[6] According to the naturalistic principles, a character is set into a world where there is no escape from one's biological heredity. Additionally, the circumstances in which a person finds oneself will dominate one's behavior, depriving the individual of personal responsibility.[7] Although Stephen Crane denied any influence by Émile Zola,[6] the creator of Naturalism, examples in his novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, indicate that he was inspired by French naturalism. The characters in Maggie are stuck in their class without a way out, due to their heritage and their inability to see other perspectives besides their own.[2] Critic Don Dingledine emphasizes how the behavior and actions of the characters in Maggie are influenced by poverty.[2] Maggie is subject to this environment, as it shapes the outcome of her life despite her best effort to improve her circumstances by marrying Pete.[5] Critics debate whether Crane's use of naturalism was intended to create empathy for the characters living in the Bowery or to support the idea that there is a genetic reason why they are impoverished.[2][3] Gender and sexuality[edit] During the nineteenth century, ideas of gender associated primitiveness with femininity.[4] Jordan Von Cannon states that the idea of woman as savage contributed to the classification of women into binaries, such as "the prostitute and the mother".[4] Von Cannon finds the defining difference between the women in these two groups to be their ability to control their sexual desires.[4] According to Von Cannon, it was accepted socially that prostitutes became such due to an inability to control this sexual desire.[4] However, critic Keith Gandal believes that Crane’s depiction of Maggie’s journey to prostitution shows that it is not her sexual desire, but her environment’s influence on her, which drives her to prostitution.[8] Gandal claims that Maggie's sexuality also reflects an alternative class-based morality that views sexuality differently from upper-class ideas of sexual morality.[8] Social class[edit] Within the novella, Crane comments on class. The main characters of the novella live in the Bowery, whose inhabitants are poor, typically drunk and violent. Don Dingledine states that Maggie fails to understand the impact of her social class upon her. He claims that Maggie believes that she can move into a higher class, but fails to realize that she lacks the social or cultural capital to do this.[2] In the novella, Maggie believes Pete to be a refined gentleman, when it is obvious to readers, by Crane's ironic narration, that Pete is not. Maggie attempts to dress nicer and make her home appear more beautiful, to no avail. Dingledine argues that Maggie overestimates the effects of her attempts to beautify her home on Pete and on society.[2] After all, he says that despite her efforts, Maggie does not have the tastes or acquired skills of a middle-class woman, meaning that she would not be accepted into that class.[2] Critic David Hunstperger points out that the use of melodramas for the entertainment of characters within the novella emphasizes a class group reaction to class inequality.[9] He argues that the shared reaction to the melodramas displays an alignment in the beliefs of the Bowery residents. In Maggie, the majority of low class residents drink, gamble and fight each other. Yet, Maggie, a low class woman herself, does not engage in this behavior. Instead, Crane writes, "The girl, Maggie, blossomed in a mud puddle. She grew to be a most rare and wonderful production of a tenement district, a pretty girl. None of the dirt of Rum Alley seemed to be in her veins."[10] Due to these differing portrayals of low-class citizens, critics debate if Crane's intentions for the novella were to critique a social caste system and its effect on those within it, or to point to the failings of a family unit, resulting in the downfall of one member.[2][4] Historical context[edit] Maggie was published during the time of industrialization.[6] The United States, a country shaped by agriculture in the 19th century, became an industrialized nation in the late 1800s. Moreover, "an unprecedented influx of immigrants contributed to a boom in population," created bigger cities and a new consumer society. By these developments, progress was linked with poverty, illustrating that the majority of the US population was skeptical about the dependency on the fluctuation of global economy.[11] Main characters[edit] Jimmie Johnson: An eldest brother of Maggie and Tommie's brother, who first appears in the beginning scene fighting a gang war of some sort with the Rum Alley Children. Serves as a foil to Maggie. Pete: A teenager, in the beginning, who is an acquaintance of Jimmie, and saves Jimmie in the fight. Later, he seduces Maggie and breaks her of her romantic viewpoints. Father: The brutal, drunkard father of Jimmie, Maggie, and Tommie. Maggie Johnson: The Johnsons' middle child, protagonist of the story, apparently immune to the after-effects of the negative family. She is seduced by Pete and is seen as effectively ruined. She is implied to have become a prostitute at the end of the novel and dies an early death. Tommie Johnson: The youngest Johnson child who dies an early death. Mary Johnson: The drunkard and brutal mother who drives Maggie out of the house. Nellie: Pete's friend, who convinces him to leave Maggie. Bibliography[edit] Editions[edit] The Works of Stephen Crane edited by Fredson Bowers is regarded as the definitive text of Crane's works, although several textual critics regard the editorial principles behind the first volume (containing Maggie) to be flawed.[12] Crane, Stephen Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. (New York and London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1979) ISBN 9780393950243. Edited with a preface and notes by Thomas A. Gullason. Contains the 1893 text, as well as contemporary reviews and modern criticism. Crane, Stephen Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2000) ISBN 9780140437973. Selected and with an introduction by Larzer Ziff, with the assistance of Theo Davies. Also includes George's Mother, and eleven other tales of New York. Works of criticism[edit] General[edit] Åhnebrink, Lars. The Beginnings of Naturalism in American Fiction (Uppsala: A.-B Lundequistka Bokhandeln, 1950). Bergon, Frank Stephen Crane's Artistry (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975).****  Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism. He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. The ninth surviving child of Methodist parents, Crane began writing at the age of four and had published several articles by the age of 16. Having little interest in university studies though he was active in a fraternity, he left Syracuse University in 1891 to work as a reporter and writer. Crane's first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, generally considered by critics to be the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim in 1895 for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote without having any battle experience. In 1896, Crane endured a highly publicized scandal after appearing as a witness in the trial of a suspected prostitute, an acquaintance named Dora Clark. Late that year he accepted an offer to travel to Cuba as a war correspondent. As he waited in Jacksonville, Florida for passage, he met Cora Taylor, with whom he began a lasting relationship. En route to Cuba, Crane's vessel the SS Commodore sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him and others adrift for 30 hours in a dinghy.[1] Crane described the ordeal in "The Open Boat". During the final years of his life, he covered conflicts in Greece (accompanied by Cora, recognized as the first woman war correspondent) and later lived in England with her. He was befriended by writers such as Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells. Plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, Crane died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium in Germany at the age of 28. At the time of his death, Crane was considered an important figure in American literature. After he was nearly forgotten for two decades, critics revived interest in his life and work. Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects, and irony. Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. Although recognized primarily for The Red Badge of Courage, which has become an American classic, Crane is also known for his poetry, journalism, and short stories such as "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", and The Monster. His writing made a deep impression on 20th-century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway, and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists. Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early years 1.2 Schooling 1.3 Full-time writer 1.4 Life in New York 1.5 Travels and fame 1.6 Scandal 1.7 Cora Taylor and the Commodore shipwreck 1.8 Greco-Turkish War 1.9 Spanish–American War 1.10 Death 2 Fiction and poetry 2.1 Style and technique 2.2 Major themes 2.3 Novels 2.4 Short fiction 2.5 Poetry 3 Legacy 4 Selected list of works 5 References 6 Bibliography 6.1 Primary sources 6.2 Secondary sources 7 External links Biography[edit] Early years[edit] Stephen Crane was born on November 1, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey, to Jonathan Townley Crane, a minister in the Methodist Episcopal church, and Mary Helen Peck Crane, daughter of a clergyman, George Peck.[2] He was the fourteenth and last child born to the couple. At 45, Helen Crane had suffered the early deaths of her previous four children, each of whom died within one year of birth.[3] Nicknamed "Stevie" by the family, he joined eight surviving brothers and sisters—Mary Helen, George Peck, Jonathan Townley, William Howe, Agnes Elizabeth, Edmund Byran, Wilbur Fiske, and Luther.[4] The Cranes were descended from Jaspar Crane, a founder of New Haven Colony, who had migrated there from England in 1639.[5] Stephen was named for a putative founder of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, who had, according to family tradition, come from England or Wales in 1665,[6] as well as his great-great-grandfather Stephen Crane (1709–1780), a Revolutionary War patriot who served as New Jersey delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia.[7] Crane later wrote that his father, Dr. Crane, "was a great, fine, simple mind," who had written numerous tracts on theology.[8] Although his mother was a popular spokeswoman for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a highly religious woman, Crane wrote that he did not believe "she was as narrow as most of her friends or family."[9] The young Stephen was raised primarily by his sister Agnes, who was 15 years his senior.[7] The family moved to Port Jervis, New York, in 1876, where Dr. Crane became the pastor of Drew Methodist Church, a position that he retained until his death.[7] As a child, Stephen was often sickly and afflicted by constant colds.[10] When the boy was almost two, his father wrote in his diary that his youngest son became "so sick that we are anxious about him." Despite his fragile nature, Crane was an intelligent child who taught himself to read before the age of four.[4] His first known inquiry, recorded by his father, dealt with writing; at the age of three, while imitating his brother Townley's writing, he asked his mother, "how do you spell O?"[11] In December 1879, Crane wrote a poem about wanting a dog for Christmas. Entitled "I'd Rather Have –", it is his first surviving poem.[12] Stephen was not regularly enrolled in school until January 1880,[13] but he had no difficulty in completing two grades in six weeks. Recalling this feat, he wrote that it "sounds like the lie of a fond mother at a teaparty, but I do remember that I got ahead very fast and that father was very pleased with me."[14] Dr. Crane died on February 16, 1880, at the age of 60; Stephen was eight years old. Some 1,400 people mourned Dr. Crane at his funeral, more than double the size of his congregation.[15] After her husband's death, Mrs. Crane moved to Roseville, near Newark, leaving Stephen in the care of his older brother Edmund, with whom the young boy lived with cousins in Sussex County. He next lived with his brother William, a lawyer, in Port Jervis for several years. His older sister Helen took him to Asbury Park to be with their brother Townley and his wife, Fannie. Townley was a professional journalist; he headed the Long Branch department of both the New-York Tribune and the Associated Press, and also served as editor of the Asbury Park Shore Press. Agnes, another Crane sister, joined the siblings in New Jersey. She took a position at Asbury Park's intermediate school and moved in with Helen to care for the young Stephen.[16] Within a couple of years, the Crane family suffered more losses. First, Townley and his wife lost their two young children. His wife Fannie died of Bright's disease in November 1883. Agnes Crane became ill and died on June 10, 1884, of meningitis at the age of 28.[17] Schooling[edit] Crane wrote his first known story, "Uncle Jake and the Bell Handle", when he was 14.[18] In late 1885, he enrolled at Pennington Seminary, a ministry-focused coeducational boarding school 7 miles (11 km) north of Trenton.[19] His father had been principal there from 1849 to 1858.[7] Soon after her youngest son left for school, Mrs. Crane began suffering what the Asbury Park Shore Press reported as "a temporary aberration of the mind."[20] She had apparently recovered by early 1886, but later that year, her son, 23-year-old Luther Crane, died after falling in front of an oncoming train while working as a flagman for the Erie Railroad. It was the fourth death in six years among Stephen's immediate family.[21] Cadet Crane in uniform at the age of 17 After two years, Crane left Pennington for Claverack College, a quasi-military school. He later looked back on his time at Claverack as "the happiest period of my life although I was not aware of it."[22] A classmate remembered him as a highly literate but erratic student, lucky to pass examinations in math and science, and yet "far in advance of his fellow students in his knowledge of History and Literature", his favorite subjects.[23] While he held an impressive record on the drill field and baseball diamond, Crane generally did not excel in the classroom.[24] Not having a middle name, as was customary among other students, he took to signing his name "Stephen T. Crane" in order "to win recognition as a regular fellow".[23] Crane was seen as friendly, but also moody and rebellious. He sometimes skipped class in order to play baseball, a game in which he starred as catcher.[25] He was also greatly interested in the school's military training program. He rose rapidly in the ranks of the student battalion.[26] One classmate described him as "indeed physically attractive without being handsome", but he was aloof, reserved and not generally popular at Claverack.[27] Although academically weak, Crane gained experience at Claverack that provided background (and likely some anecdotes from the Civil War veterans on the staff) that proved useful when he came to write The Red Badge of Courage.[28] Stephen Crane (front row, center) sits with baseball teammates on the steps of the Hall of Languages, Syracuse University, 1891. (Photo courtesy of the SU Special Collections Research Center) In mid-1888, Crane became his brother Townley's assistant at a New Jersey shore news bureau, working there every summer until 1892.[29] Crane's first publication under his byline was an article on the explorer Henry M. Stanley's famous quest to find the Scottish missionary David Livingstone in Africa. It appeared in the February 1890 Claverack College Vidette.[30] Within a few months, Crane was persuaded by his family to forgo a military career and transfer to Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, in order to pursue a mining engineering degree.[31] He registered at Lafayette on September 12, and promptly became involved in extracurricular activities; he took up baseball again and joined the largest fraternity, Delta Upsilon. He also joined both rival literary societies, named for (George) Washington and (Benjamin) Franklin.[32] Crane infrequently attended classes and ended the semester with grades for four of the seven courses he had taken.[33] After one semester, Crane transferred to Syracuse University, where he enrolled as a non-degree candidate in the College of Liberal Arts.[34] He roomed in the Delta Upsilon fraternity house and joined the baseball team. Attending just one class (English Literature) during the middle trimester, he remained in residence while taking no courses in the third semester.[35] Concentrating on his writing, Crane began to experiment with tone and style while trying out different subjects.[36] He published his fictional story, "Great Bugs of Onondaga," simultaneously in the Syracuse Daily Standard and the New York Tribune.[37] Declaring college "a waste of time", Crane decided to become a full-time writer and reporter. He attended a Delta Upsilon chapter meeting on June 12, 1891, but shortly afterward left college for good.[38] Full-time writer[edit] In the summer of 1891, Crane often camped with friends in the nearby area of Sullivan County, New York, where his brother Edmund occupied a house obtained as part of their brother William's Hartwood Club (Association) land dealings. He used this area as the geographic setting for several short stories, which were posthumously published in a collection under the title Stephen Crane: Sullivan County Tales and Sketches.[39] Crane showed two of these works to Tribune editor Willis Fletcher Johnson, a friend of the family, who accepted them for the publication. "Hunting Wild Dogs" and "The Last of the Mohicans" were the first of fourteen unsigned Sullivan County sketches and tales that were published in the Tribune between February and July 1892. Crane also showed Johnson an early draft of his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.[40] Later that summer, Crane met and befriended author Hamlin Garland, who had been lecturing locally on American literature and the expressive arts; on August 17 he gave a talk on novelist William Dean Howells, which Crane wrote up for the Tribune.[41] Garland became a mentor for and champion of the young writer, whose intellectual honesty impressed him. Their relationship suffered in later years, however, because Garland disapproved of Crane's alleged immorality, related to his living with a woman married to another man.[42] Stephen moved into his brother Edmund's house in Lakeview, a suburb of Paterson, New Jersey, in the fall of 1891. From here he made frequent trips into New York City, writing and reporting particularly on its impoverished tenement districts.[43] Crane focused particularly on The Bowery, a small and once prosperous neighborhood in the southern part of Manhattan. After the Civil War, Bowery shops and mansions had given way to saloons, dance halls, brothels and flophouses, all of which Crane frequented. He later said he did so for research. He was attracted to the human nature found in the slums, considering it "open and plain, with nothing hidden".[43] Believing nothing honest and unsentimental had been written about the Bowery, Crane became determined to do so himself; this was the setting of his first novel.[44] On December 7, 1891, Crane's mother died at the age of 64, and the 20-year-old appointed Edmund as his guardian. Despite being frail, undernourished and suffering from a hacking cough, which did not prevent him from smoking cigarettes, in the spring of 1892 Crane began a romance with Lily Brandon Munroe, a married woman who was estranged from her husband.[45] Although Munroe later said Crane "was not a handsome man", she admired his "remarkable almond-shaped gray eyes."[46] He begged her to elope with him, but her family opposed the match because Crane lacked money and prospects, and she declined.[45] Their last meeting likely occurred in April 1898, when he again asked her to run away with him and she again refused.[47] Such an assemblage of the spraddle-legged men of the middle class, whose hands were bent and shoulders stooped from delving and constructing, had never appeared to an Asbury Park summer crowd, and the latter was vaguely amused. — Stephen Crane, account of the JOUAM parade as it appeared in the Tribune[48] Between July 2 and September 11, 1892, Crane published at least ten news reports on Asbury Park affairs. Although a Tribune colleague stated that Crane "was not highly distinguished above any other boy of twenty who had gained a reputation for saying and writing bright things,"[49] that summer his reporting took on a more skeptical, hypocrisy-deflating tone.[50] A storm of controversy erupted over a report he wrote on the Junior Order of United American Mechanics' American Day Parade, entitled "Parades and Entertainments". Published on August 21, the report juxtaposes the "bronzed, slope-shouldered, uncouth" marching men "begrimed with dust" and the spectators dressed in "summer gowns, lace parasols, tennis trousers, straw hats and indifferent smiles".[51] Believing they were being ridiculed, some JOUAM marchers were outraged and wrote to the editor. The owner of the Tribune, Whitelaw Reid, was that year's Republican vice-presidential candidate, and this likely increased the sensitivity of the paper's management to the issue. Although Townley wrote a piece for the Asbury Park Daily Press in his brother's defense, the Tribune quickly apologized to its readers, calling Stephen Crane's piece "a bit of random correspondence, passed inadvertently by the copy editor".[52] Hamlin Garland and biographer John Barry attested that Crane told them he had been dismissed by the Tribune, although Willis Fletcher Johnson later denied this. The paper did not publish any of Crane's work after 1892.[53] Life in New York[edit] A steam train on the Third Avenue El over the Bowery in 1896 Crane struggled to make a living as a free-lance writer, contributing sketches and feature articles to various New York newspapers.[54] In October 1892, he moved into a rooming house in Manhattan whose boarders were a group of medical students.[55] During this time, he expanded or entirely reworked Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, which is about a girl who "blossoms in a mud-puddle" and becomes a pitiful victim of circumstance.[56] In the winter of 1893, Crane took the manuscript of Maggie to Richard Watson Gilder, who rejected it for publication in The Century Magazine. Crane decided to publish it privately, with money he had inherited from his mother.[57] The novel was published in late February or early March 1893 by a small printing shop that usually printed medical books and religious tracts. The typewritten title page for the Library of Congress copyright application read simply: "A Girl of the Streets, / A Story of New York. / —By—/Stephen Crane." The name "Maggie" was added to the title later.[58] Crane used the pseudonym "Johnston Smith" for the novel's initial publication, later telling friend and artist Corwin Knapp Linson that the nom de plume was the "commonest name I could think of. I had an editor friend named Johnson, and put in the "t", and no one could find me in the mob of Smiths."[59] Hamlin Garland reviewed the work in the June 1893 issue of The Arena, calling it "the most truthful and unhackneyed study of the slums I have yet read, fragment though it is."[60] Despite this early praise, Crane became depressed and destitute from having spent $869 for 1,100 copies of a novel that did not sell; he ended up giving a hundred copies away. He would later remember "how I looked forward to publication and pictured the sensation I thought it would make. It fell flat. Nobody seemed to notice it or care for it... Poor Maggie! She was one of my first loves."[61] In March 1893, Crane spent hours lounging in Linson's studio while having his portrait painted. He became fascinated with issues of the Century that were largely devoted to famous battles and military leaders from the Civil War.[62] Frustrated with the dryly written stories, Crane stated, "I wonder that some of those fellows don't tell how they felt in those scraps. They spout enough of what they did, but they're as emotionless as rocks."[63] Crane returned to these magazines during subsequent visits to Linson's studio, and eventually the idea of writing a war novel overtook him. He would later state that he "had been unconsciously working the detail of the story out through most of his boyhood" and had imagined "war stories ever since he was out of knickerbockers."[64] This novel would ultimately become The Red Badge of Courage. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills. — Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage[65] From the beginning, Crane wished to show how it felt to be in a war by writing "a psychological portrayal of fear."[66] Conceiving his story from the point of view of a young private who is at first filled with boyish dreams of the glory of war and then quickly becomes disillusioned by war's reality, Crane borrowed the private's surname, "Fleming", from his sister-in-law's maiden name. He later said that the first paragraphs came to him with "every word in place, every comma, every period fixed."[66] Working mostly nights, he wrote from around midnight until four or five in the morning. Because he could not afford a typewriter, he wrote carefully in ink on legal-sized paper, seldom crossing through or interlining a word. If he did change something, he would rewrite the whole page.[67] While working on his second novel, Crane remained prolific, concentrating on publishing stories to stave off poverty; "An Experiment in Misery", based on Crane's experiences in the Bowery, was printed by the New York Press. He also wrote five or six poems a day.[68] In early 1894, he showed some of his poems or "lines" as he called them, to Hamlin Garland, who said he read "some thirty in all" with "growing wonder."[69] Although Garland and William Dean Howells encouraged him to submit his poetry for publication, Crane's free verse was too unconventional for most. After brief wrangling between poet and publisher, Copeland & Day accepted Crane's first book of poems, The Black Riders and Other Lines, although it would not be published until after The Red Badge of Courage. He received a 10 percent royalty and the publisher assured him that the book would be in a form "more severely classic than any book ever yet issued in America."[70] In the spring of 1894, Crane offered the finished manuscript of The Red Badge of Courage to McClure's Magazine, which had become the foremost magazine for Civil War literature. While McClure's delayed giving him an answer on his novel, they offered him an assignment writing about the Pennsylvania coal mines.[71] "In the Depths of a Coal Mine", a story with pictures by Linson, was syndicated by McClure's in a number of newspapers, heavily edited. Crane was reportedly disgusted by the cuts, asking Linson: "Why the hell did they send me up there then? Do they want the public to think the coal mines gilded ball-rooms with the miners eating ice-cream in boiled shirt-fronts?"[72] Sources report that following an encounter with a male prostitute that spring, Crane began a novel on the subject entitled Flowers of Asphalt, which he later abandoned. The manuscript has never been recovered.[73] After discovering that McClure's could not afford to pay him, Crane took his war novel to Irving Bacheller of the Bacheller-Johnson Newspaper Syndicate, which agreed to publish The Red Badge of Courage in serial form. Between the third and the ninth of December 1894, The Red Badge of Courage was published in some half-dozen newspapers in the United States.[74] Although it was greatly cut for syndication, Bacheller attested to its causing a stir, saying "its quality [was] immediately felt and recognized."[75] The lead editorial in the Philadelphia Press of December 7 said that Crane "is a new name now and unknown, but everybody will be talking about him if he goes on as he has begun".[76] Travels and fame[edit] Detail taken from an 1894 portrait of Crane by friend and photographer Corwin Knapp Linson. Linson said the author's profile reminded him "of the young Napoleon—but not so hard, Steve."[77] At the end of January 1895, Crane left on what he called "a very long and circuitous newspaper trip" to the west.[78] While writing feature articles for the Bacheller syndicate, he traveled to Saint Louis, Missouri, Nebraska, New Orleans, Galveston, Texas and then Mexico City.[79] Irving Bacheller would later state that he "sent Crane to Mexico for new color",[80] which the author found in the form of Mexican slum life. Whereas he found the lower class in New York pitiful, he was impressed by the "superiority" of the Mexican peasants' contentment and "even refuse[d] to pity them."[81] Returning to New York five months later, Crane joined the Lantern (alternately spelled "Lanthom" or "Lanthorne") Club organized by a group of young writers and journalists.[82] The Club, located on the roof of an old house on William Street near the Brooklyn Bridge, served as a drinking establishment of sorts and was decorated to look like a ship's cabin.[83] There Crane ate one good meal a day, although friends were troubled by his "constant smoking, too much coffee, lack of food and poor teeth", as Nelson Greene put it.[84] Living in near-poverty and greatly anticipating the publication of his books, Crane began work on two more novels: The Third Violet and George's Mother. The Black Riders was published by Copeland & Day shortly before his return to New York in May, but it received mostly criticism, if not abuse, for the poems' unconventional style and use of free verse. A piece in the Bookman called Crane "the Aubrey Beardsley of poetry,"[85] and a commentator from the Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean stated that "there is not a line of poetry from the opening to the closing page. Whitman's Leaves of Grass were luminous in comparison. Poetic lunacy would be a better name for the book."[82] In June, the New York Tribune dismissed the book as "so much trash."[86] Crane was pleased that the book was "making some stir".[87] In contrast to the reception for Crane's poetry, The Red Badge of Courage was welcomed with acclaim after its publication by Appleton in September 1895. For the next four months, the book was in the top six on various bestseller lists around the country.[88] It arrived on the literary scene "like a flash of lightning out of a clear winter sky", according to H. L. Mencken, who was about 15 at the time.[88] The novel also became popular in Britain; Joseph Conrad, a future friend of Crane, wrote that the novel "detonated... with the impact and force of a twelve-inch shell charged with a very high explosive."[88] Appleton published two, possibly three, printings in 1895 and as many as eleven more in 1896.[89] Although some critics considered the work overly graphic and profane, it was widely heralded for its realistic portrayal of war and unique writing style. The Detroit Free Press declared that The Red Badge would give readers "so vivid a picture of the emotions and the horrors of the battlefield that you will pray your eyes may never look upon the reality."[90] Wanting to capitalize on the success of The Red Badge, McClure Syndicate offered Crane a contract to write a series on Civil War battlefields. Because it was a wish of his to "visit the battlefield—which I was to describe—at the time of year when it was fought", Crane agreed to take the assignment.[91] Visiting battlefields in Northern Virginia, including Fredericksburg, he would later produce five more Civil War tales: "Three Miraculous Soldiers", "The Veteran", "An Indiana Campaign", "An Episode of War" and The Little Regiment.[92] Scandal[edit] At the age of 24, Crane, who was reveling in his success, became involved in a highly publicized case involving a suspected prostitute named Dora Clark. At 2 a.m.[93] on September 16, 1896, he escorted two chorus girls and Clark from New York City's Broadway Garden, a popular "resort" where he had interviewed the women for a series he was writing.[94] As Crane saw one woman safely to a streetcar, a plainclothes policeman named Charles Becker arrested the other two for solicitation; Crane was threatened with arrest when he tried to interfere. One of the women was released after Crane confirmed her erroneous claim that she was his wife, but Clark was charged and taken to the precinct. Against the advice of the arresting sergeant, Crane made a statement confirming Dora Clark's innocence, stating that "I only know that while with me she acted respectably, and that the policeman's charge was false."[95] On the basis of Crane's testimony, Clark was discharged. The media seized upon the story; news spread to Philadelphia, Boston and beyond, with papers focusing on Crane's courage.[96] The Stephen Crane story, as it became known, soon became a source for ridicule; the Chicago Dispatch in particular quipped that "Stephen Crane is respectfully informed that association with women in scarlet is not necessarily a 'Red Badge of Courage' ".[97] A couple of weeks after her trial, Clark pressed charges of false arrest against the officer who had arrested her. The next day, the officer physically attacked Clark in the presence of witnesses for having brought charges against him. Crane, who initially went briefly to Philadelphia to escape the pressure of publicity, returned to New York to give testimony at Becker's trial despite advice given to him from Theodore Roosevelt, who was Police Commissioner at the time and a new acquaintance of Crane.[98] The defense targeted Crane: police raided his apartment and interviewed people who knew him, trying to find incriminating evidence in order to lessen the effect of his testimony.[99] A vigorous cross-examination took place that sought to portray Crane as a man of dubious morals; while the prosecution proved that he frequented brothels, Crane claimed this was merely for research purposes.[100] After the trial ended on October 16, the arresting officer was exonerated, and Crane's reputation was ruined.[101] Cora Taylor and the Commodore shipwreck[edit] None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. — Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat"[102] Given $700 in Spanish gold by the Bacheller-Johnson syndicate to work as a war correspondent in Cuba as the Spanish–American War was pending, the 25-year-old Crane left New York on November 27, 1896, on a train bound for Jacksonville, Florida.[103] Upon arrival in Jacksonville, he registered at the St. James Hotel under the alias of Samuel Carleton to maintain anonymity while seeking passage to Cuba.[104] While waiting for a boat, he toured the city and visited the local brothels. Within days he met 31-year-old Cora Taylor, proprietor of the downtown bawdy house Hotel de Dream. Born into a respectable Boston family,[105] Taylor (whose legal name was Cora Ethel Stewart) had already had two brief marriages; her first husband, Vinton Murphy, divorced her on grounds of adultery. In 1889, she had married British Captain Donald William Stewart. She left him in 1892 for another man, but was still legally married.[106] By the time Crane arrived, Taylor had been in Jacksonville for two years. She lived a bohemian lifestyle, owned a hotel of assignation, and was a well-known and respected local figure. The two spent much time together while Crane awaited his departure. He was finally cleared to leave for the Cuban port of Cienfuegos on New Year's Eve aboard the SS Commodore.[107] The SS Commodore at dock The ship sailed from Jacksonville with 27 or 28 men and a cargo of supplies and ammunition for the Cuban rebels.[108] On the St. Johns River and less than 2 miles (3.2 km) from Jacksonville, Commodore struck a sandbar in a dense fog and damaged its hull. Although towed off the sandbar the following day, it was beached again in Mayport and again damaged.[109] A leak began in the boiler room that evening and, as a result of malfunctioning water pumps, the ship came to a standstill about 16 miles (26 km) from Mosquito Inlet. As the ship took on more water, Crane described the engine room as resembling "a scene at this time taken from the middle kitchen of hades."[110] Commodore's lifeboats were lowered in the early hours of the morning on January 2, 1897 and the ship ultimately sank at 7 a.m. Crane was one of the last to leave the ship in a 10-foot (3.0 m) dinghy. In an ordeal that he recounted in the short story "The Open Boat", Crane and three other men (including the ship's Captain) floundered off the coast of Florida for a day and a half before trying to land the dinghy at Daytona Beach. The small boat overturned in the surf, forcing the exhausted men to swim to shore; one of them died.[111] Having lost the gold given to him for his journey, Crane wired Cora Taylor for help. She traveled to Daytona and returned to Jacksonville with Crane the next day, only four days after he had left on the Commodore.[112] The disaster was reported on the front pages of newspapers across the country. Rumors that the ship had been sabotaged were widely circulated but never substantiated.[113] Portrayed favorably and heroically by the press, Crane emerged from the ordeal with his reputation enhanced, if not restored, after the battering he had received in the Dora Clark affair. Meanwhile, Crane's affair with Taylor blossomed. Three seasons of archaeological investigation were conducted in 2002-04 to examine and document the exposed remains of a wreck near Ponce Inlet, FL conjectured to be that of the SS Commodore.[114] The collected data, and other accumulated evidence, finally substantiated the identification of the Commodore beyond a reasonable doubt.[115] Greco-Turkish War[edit] Despite contentment in Jacksonville and the need for rest after his ordeal, Crane became restless. He left Jacksonville on January 11 for New York City, where he applied for a passport to Cuba, Mexico and the West Indies. Spending three weeks in New York, he completed "The Open Boat" and periodically visited Port Jervis to see family.[116] By this time, however, blockades had formed along the Florida coast as tensions rose with Spain, and Crane concluded that he would never be able to travel to Cuba. He sold "The Open Boat" to Scribner's for $300 in early March.[117] Determined to work as a war correspondent, Crane signed on with William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal to cover the impending Greco-Turkish conflict. He brought along Taylor, who had sold the Hotel de Dream in order to follow him.[118] Crane posing on a fake rock for a studio photograph in Athens, 1897 On March 20, they sailed first to England, where Crane was warmly received. They arrived in Athens in early April; between April 17 (when Turkey declared war on Greece) and April 22, Crane wrote his first published report of the war, "An Impression of the 'Concert' ".[119] When he left for Epirus in the northwest, Taylor remained in Athens, where she became the Greek war's first woman war correspondent. She wrote under the pseudonym "Imogene Carter" for the New York Journal, a job that Crane had secured for her.[120] They wrote frequently, traveling throughout the country separately and together. The first large battle that Crane witnessed was the Turks' assault on General Constantine Smolenski's Greek forces at Velestino. Crane wrote, "It is a great thing to survey the army of the enemy. Just where and how it takes hold upon the heart is difficult of description."[121] During this battle, Crane encountered "a fat waddling puppy" that he immediately claimed, dubbing it "Velestino, the Journal dog".[122] Greece and Turkey signed an armistice on May 20, ending the 30-day war; Crane and Taylor left Greece for England, taking two Greek brothers as servants and Velestino the dog with them.[123] Spanish–American War[edit] After staying in Limpsfield, Surrey, for a few days, Crane and Taylor settled in Ravensbrook, a plain brick villa in Oxted.[124] Referring to themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Crane, the couple lived openly in England, but Crane concealed the relationship from his friends and family in the United States.[125] Admired in England, Crane thought himself attacked back home: "There seem so many of them in America who want to kill, bury and forget me purely out of unkindness and envy and—my unworthiness, if you choose", he wrote.[126] Velestino the dog sickened and died soon after their arrival in England, on August 1. Crane, who had a great love for dogs,[127] wrote an emotional letter to a friend an hour after the dog's death, stating that "for eleven days we fought death for him, thinking nothing of anything but his life."[128] The Limpsfield-Oxted area was home to members of the socialist Fabian Society and a magnet for writers such as Edmund Gosse, Ford Madox Ford and Edward Garnett. Crane also met the Polish-born novelist Joseph Conrad in October 1897, with whom he would have what Crane called a "warm and endless friendship".[129] Although Crane was confident among peers, strong negative reviews of the recently published The Third Violet were causing his literary reputation to dwindle. Reviewers were also highly critical of Crane's war letters, deeming them self-centered.[130] Although The Red Badge of Courage had by this time gone through fourteen printings in the United States and six in England, Crane was running out of money. To survive financially, he worked at a feverish pitch, writing prolifically for both the English and the American markets.[131] He wrote in quick succession stories such as The Monster, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", "Death and the Child" and "The Blue Hotel".[128] Crane began to attach price tags to his new works of fiction, hoping that "The Bride", for example, would fetch $175.[132] As 1897 ended, Crane's money crisis worsened.[133] Amy Leslie, a reporter from Chicago and a former lover, sued him for $550.[134] The New York Times reported that Leslie gave him $800 in November 1896 but that he'd repaid only a quarter of the sum.[135] In February he was summoned to answer Leslie's claim. The claim was apparently settled out of court, because no record of adjudication exists.[136] Meanwhile, Crane felt "heavy with troubles" and "chased to the wall" by expenses.[137] He confided to his agent that he was $2,000 in debt but that he would "beat it" with more literary output.[138] Soon after the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898, under suspicious circumstances, Crane was offered a £60 advance by Blackwood's Magazine for articles "from the seat of war in the event of a war breaking out" between the United States and Spain.[129] His health was failing, and it is believed that signs of his pulmonary tuberculosis, which he may have contracted in childhood,[139] became apparent.[140] With almost no money coming in from his finished stories, Crane accepted the assignment and left Oxted for New York.[141] Taylor and the rest of the household stayed behind to fend off local creditors. Crane applied for a passport and left New York for Key West two days before Congress declared war. While the war idled, he interviewed people and produced occasional copy.[142] In early June, he observed the establishment of an American base in Cuba when Marines seized Guantánamo Bay.[143] He went ashore with the Marines, planning "to gather impressions and write them as the spirit moved."[144] Although he wrote honestly about his fear in battle, others observed his calmness and composure. He would later recall "this prolonged tragedy of the night" in the war tale "Marines Signaling Under Fire at Guantanamo".[145] After showing a willingness to serve during fighting at Cuzco, Cuba, by carrying messages to company commanders, Crane was officially cited for his "material aid during the action".[146] He continued to report upon various battles and the worsening military conditions and praised Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, despite past tensions with the Commissioner. In early July, Crane was sent to the United States for medical treatment for a high fever.[147] He was diagnosed with yellow fever, then malaria.[148] Upon arrival in Old Point Comfort, Virginia, he spent a few weeks resting in a hotel. Although Crane had filed more than twenty dispatches in the three months he had covered the war, the World's business manager believed that the paper had not received its money's worth and fired him.[149] In retaliation, Crane signed with Hearst's New York Journal with the wish to return to Cuba. He traveled first to Puerto Rico and then to Havana. In September, rumors began to spread that Crane, who was working anonymously, had either been killed or disappeared.[150] He sporadically sent out dispatches and stories; he wrote about the mood in Havana, the crowded city sidewalks, and other topics, but he was soon desperate for money again. Taylor, left alone in England, was also penniless. She became frantic with worry over her lover's whereabouts; they were not in direct communication until the end of the year.[151] Crane left Havana and arrived in England on January 11, 1899. Death[edit] Rent on Ravensbrook had not been paid for a year. Upon returning to England, Crane secured a solicitor to act as guarantor for their debts, after which Crane and Taylor relocated to Brede Place.[152] This manor in Sussex, which dated to the 14th century and had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing,[153] was offered to them by friends at a modest rent.[154] The relocation appeared to give hope to Crane, but his money problems continued. Deciding that he could no longer afford to write for American publications, he concentrated on publishing in English magazines.[155] Crane pushed himself to write feverishly during the first months at Brede; he told his publisher that he was "doing more work now than I have at any other period in my life".[156] His health worsened, and by late 1899 he was asking friends about health resorts.[157] The Monster and Other Stories was in production and War Is Kind, his second collection of poems, was published in the United States in May. None of his books after The Red Badge of Courage had sold well, and he bought a typewriter to spur output. Active Service, a novella based on Crane's correspondence experience, was published in October. The New York Times reviewer questioned "whether the author of 'Active Service' himself really sees anything remarkable in his newspapery hero."[158] Crane's gravestone in Evergreen Cemetery In December, the couple held an elaborate Christmas party at Brede, attended by Conrad, Henry James, H. G. Wells and other friends; it lasted several days.[159] On December 29 Crane suffered a severe pulmonary hemorrhage. In January 1900 he'd recovered sufficiently to work on a new novel, The O'Ruddy, completing 25 of the 33 chapters. Plans were made for him to travel as a correspondent to Gibraltar to write sketches from Saint Helena, the site of a Boer prison,[160] but at the end of March and in early April he suffered two more hemorrhages.[161] Taylor took over most of Crane's correspondence while he was ill, writing to friends for monetary aid. The couple planned to travel on the continent, but Conrad, upon visiting Crane for the last time, remarked that his friend's "wasted face was enough to tell me that it was the most forlorn of all hopes."[162] On May 28, the couple arrived at Badenweiler, Germany, a health spa on the edge of the Black Forest. Despite his weakened condition, Crane continued to dictate fragmentary episodes for the completion of The O'Ruddy.[163] He died on June 5, 1900, at the age of 28. In his will he left everything to Taylor,[164] who took his body to New Jersey for burial. Crane was interred in Evergreen Cemetery in what is now Hillside, New Jersey. Fiction and poetry[edit] Style and technique[edit] Stephen Crane's fiction is typically categorized as representative of Naturalism, American realism, Impressionism or a mixture of the three. Critic Sergio Perosa, for example, wrote in his essay, "Stephen Crane fra naturalismo e impressionismo," that the work presents a "symbiosis" of Naturalistic ideals and Impressionistic methods.[165] When asked whether or not he would write an autobiography in 1896, Crane responded that he "dare not say that I am honest. I merely say that I am as nearly honest as a weak mental machinery will allow."[166] Similarities between the stylistic techniques in Crane's writing and Impressionist painting—including the use of color and chiaroscuro—are often cited to support the theory that Crane was not only an Impressionist but also influenced by the movement.[167] H. G. Wells remarked upon "the great influence of the studio" on Crane's work, quoting a passage from The Red Badge of Courage as an example: "At nightfall the column broke into regimental pieces, and the fragments went into the fields to camp. Tents sprang up like strange plants. Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.... From this little distance the many fires, with the black forms of men passing to and fro before the crimson rays, made weird and satanic effects."[168] Although no direct evidence exists that Crane formulated a precise theory of his craft, he vehemently rejected sentimentality, asserting that "a story should be logical in its action and faithful to character. Truth to life itself was the only test, the greatest artists were the simplest, and simple because they were true."[169] Battle of Chancellorsville by Kurz and Allison; Crane's realistic portrayal of war has earned him recognition from numerous critics and scholars throughout the years Poet and biographer John Berryman suggested that there were three basic variations, or "norms", of Crane's narrative style.[170] The first, being "flexible, swift, abrupt and nervous", is best exemplified in The Red Badge of Courage, while the second ("supple majesty") is believed to relate to "The Open Boat", and the third ("much more closed, circumstantial and 'normal' in feeling and syntax") to later works such as The Monster.[171] Crane's work, however, cannot be determined by style solely on chronology. Not only does his fiction not take place in any particular region with similar characters, but it varies from serious in tone to reportorial writing and light fiction.[172] Crane's writing, both fiction and nonfiction, is consistently driven by immediacy and is at once concentrated, vivid and intense.[173] The novels and short stories contain poetic characteristics such as shorthand prose, suggestibility, shifts in perspective and ellipses between and within sentences.[174] Similarly, omission plays a large part in Crane's work; the names of his protagonists are not commonly used and sometimes they are not named at all.[175] Crane was often criticized by early reviewers for his frequent incorporation of everyday speech into dialogue, mimicking the regional accents of his characters with colloquial stylization.[176] This is apparent in his first novel, in which Crane ignored the romantic, sentimental approach of slum fiction; he instead concentrated on the cruelty and sordid aspects of poverty, expressed by the brashness of the Bowery's crude dialect and profanity, which he used lavishly.[177] The distinct dialect of his Bowery characters is apparent at the beginning of the text; the title character admonishes her brother saying: "Yeh knows it puts mudder out when yes comes home half dead, an' it's like we'll all get a poundin'."[178] Major themes[edit] Crane's work is often thematically driven by Naturalistic and Realistic concerns, including ideals versus realities, spiritual crises and fear. These themes are particularly evident in Crane's first three novels, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, The Red Badge of Courage and George's Mother.[179] The three main characters search for a way to make their dreams come true, but ultimately suffer from crises of identity.[180] Crane was fascinated by war and death, as well as fire, disfigurement, fear and courage, all of which inspired him to write many works based on these concepts.[181] In The Red Badge of Courage, the main character both longs for the heroics of battle but ultimately fears it, demonstrating the dichotomy of courage and cowardice. He experiences the threat of death, misery and a loss of self.[182] Extreme isolation from society and community is also apparent in Crane's work. During the most intense battle scenes in The Red Badge of Courage, for example, the story's focus is mainly "on the inner responses of a self unaware of others".[183] In "The Open Boat", "An Experiment in Misery" and other stories, Crane uses light, motion and color to express degrees of epistemological uncertainty.[184] Similar to other Naturalistic writers, Crane scrutinizes the position of man, who has been isolated not only from society, but also from God and nature. "The Open Boat", for example, distances itself from Romantic optimism and affirmation of man's place in the world by concentrating on the characters' isolation.[185] While he lived, Stephen Crane was denominated by critical readers a realist, a naturalist, an impressionist, symbolist, Symboliste, expressionist and ironist;[186] his posthumous life was enriched by critics who read him as nihilistic, existentialist, a neo-Romantic, a sentimentalist, protomodernist, pointilliste, visionist, imagist and, by his most recent biographer, a “bleak naturalist.”[187] At midcentury he was a “predisciple of the New Criticism”; by its end he was “a proto-deconstructionist anti-artist hero” who had “leapfrogged modernism, landing on postmodernist ground.”[188] Or, as Sergio Perosa wrote in 1964, “The critic wanders in a labyrinth of possibilities, which every new turn taken by Crane's fiction seems to explode or deny.”[189] One undeniable fact about Crane's work, as Anthony Splendora noted in 2015, is that Death haunts it; like a threatening eclipse it overshadows his best efforts, each of which features the signal demise of a main character.[190] Allegorically, "The Blue Hotel," at the pinnacle of the short story form, may even be an autothanatography, the author's intentional exteriorization or objectification, in this case for the purpose of purgation, of his own impending death. Crane's "Swede" in that story can be taken, following current psychoanalytical theory, as a surrogative, sacrificial victim, ritually to be purged.[191] Transcending this "dark circumstance of composition,"[192] Crane had a particular telos and impetus for his creation: beyond the tautologies that all art is alterity and to some formal extent mimesis, Crane sought and obviously found "a form of catharsis" in writing.[193] This view accounts for his uniqueness, especially as operative through his notorious "disgust" with his family's religion,[194] their "vacuous, futile psalm-singing".[195] His favorite book, for example, was Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, in which God is mentioned only twice—once as irony and once as "a swindle."[188] Not only did Crane call out God specifically with the lines "Well then I hate thee / righteous image" in "The Black Riders" (1895), but even his most hopeful tropes, such as the "comradeship" of his "Open Boat" survivors, make no mention of deity, specifying only "indifferent nature." His antitheism is most evident in his characterization of the human race as "lice clinging to a space-lost bulb," a climax-nearing speech in "The Blue Hotel," Ch. VI. It is possible that Crane utilized religion's formal psychic space, now suddenly available resulting from the recent "Death of God",[196] as a milieu for his compensative art.[188] Novels[edit] Beginning with the publication of Maggie: A Girl of the Streets in 1893, Crane was recognized by critics mainly as a novelist. Maggie was initially rejected by numerous publishers because of its atypical and true-to-life depictions of class warfare, which clashed with the sentimental tales of that time. Rather than focusing on the very rich or middle class, the novel's characters are lower-class denizens of New York's Bowery.[197] The main character, Maggie, descends into prostitution after being led astray by her lover. Although the novel's plot is simple, its dramatic mood, quick pace and portrayal of Bowery life have made it memorable. Maggie is not merely an account of slum life, but also represents eternal symbols. In his first draft, Crane did not give his characters proper names. Instead, they were identified by epithets: Maggie, for example, was the girl who "blossomed in a mud-puddle" and Pete, her seducer, was a "knight".[198] The novel is dominated by bitter irony and anger, as well as destructive morality and treacherous sentiment. Critics would later call the novel "the first dark flower of American Naturalism" for its distinctive elements of naturalistic fiction.[199] Ernest Hemingway (shown on his boat circa 1950) believed The Red Badge of Courage was "one of the finest books of [American] literature". Written thirty years after the end of the Civil War and before Crane had any experience of battle, The Red Badge of Courage was innovative stylistically as well as psychologically. Often described as a war novel, it focuses less on battle and more on the main character's psyche and his reactions and responses in war.[200] It is believed that Crane based the fictional battle in the novel on that of Chancellorsville; he may also have interviewed veterans of the 124th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment, commonly known as the Orange Blossoms, in Port Jervis, New York.[201] Told in a third-person limited point of view, it reflects the private experience of Henry Fleming, a young soldier who flees from combat. The Red Badge of Courage is notable in its vivid descriptions and well-cadenced prose, both of which help create suspense within the story.[202] Similarly, by substituting epithets for characters' names ("the youth", "the tattered soldier"), Crane injects an allegorical quality into his work, making his characters point to a specific characteristic of man.[203] Like Crane's first novel, The Red Badge of Courage has a deeply ironic tone which increases in severity as the novel progresses. The title of the work is ironic; Henry wishes "that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage", echoing a wish to have been wounded in battle. The wound he does receive (from the rifle butt of a fleeing Union soldier) is not a badge of courage but a badge of shame.[204] The novel expresses a strong connection between humankind and nature, a frequent and prominent concern in Crane's fiction and poetry throughout his career. Whereas contemporary writers (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau) focused on a sympathetic bond on the two elements, Crane wrote from the perspective that human consciousness distanced humans from nature. In The Red Badge of Courage, this distance is paired with a great number of references to animals, and men with animalistic characteristics: people "howl", "squawk", "growl", or "snarl".[205] Since the resurgence of Crane's popularity in the 1920s, The Red Badge of Courage has been deemed a major American text. The novel has been anthologized numerous times, including in the 1942 collection Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time, edited by Ernest Hemingway. In the introduction, Hemingway wrote that the novel "is one of the finest books of our literature, and I include it entire because it is all as much of a piece as a great poem is."[206] Crane's later novels have not received as much critical praise. After the success of The Red Badge of Courage, Crane wrote another tale set in the Bowery. George's Mother is less allegorical and more personal than his two previous novels, and it focuses on the conflict between a church-going, temperance-adhering woman (thought to be based on Crane's mother) and her single remaining offspring, who is a naive dreamer.[207] Critical response to the novel was mixed. The Third Violet, a romance that he wrote quickly after publishing The Red Badge of Courage, is typically considered as Crane's attempt to appeal to popular audiences.[208] Crane considered it a "quiet little story." Although it contained autobiographical details, the characters have been deemed inauthentic and stereotypical.[209] Crane's second to last novel, Active Service, revolves around the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, with which the author was familiar. Although noted for its satirical take on the melodramatic and highly passionate works that were popular of the nineteenth century, the novel was not successful. It is generally accepted by critics that Crane's work suffered at this point due to the speed which he wrote in order to meet his high expenses.[210] His last novel, a suspenseful and picaresque work entitled The O'Ruddy, was finished posthumously by Robert Barr and published in 1903.[211] Short fiction[edit] Crane wrote many different types of fictional pieces while indiscriminately applying to them terms such as "story", "tale" and "sketch". For this reason, critics have found clear-cut classification of Crane's work problematic. While "The Open Boat" and "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" are often considered short stories, others are variously identified.[212] "War Memories", which Crane wrote shortly before his death, ends: "the episode was closed. And you can depend upon it that I have told you nothing at all, nothing at all, nothing at all."[213] In an 1896 interview with Herbert P. Williams, a reporter for the Boston Herald, Crane said that he did "not find that short stories are utterly different in character from other fiction. It seems to me that short stories are the easiest things we write."[214] During his brief literary career, he wrote more than a hundred short stories and fictional sketches. Crane's early fiction was based in camping expeditions in his teen years; these stories eventually became known as The Sullivan County Tales and Sketches.[215] He considered these "sketches", which are mostly humorous and not of the same caliber of work as his later fiction, to be "articles of many kinds," in that they are part fiction and part journalism. The subject matter for his stories varied extensively. His early New York City sketches and Bowery tales accurately described the results of industrialization, immigration and the growth of cities and their slums. His collection of six short stories, The Little Regiment, covered familiar ground with the American Civil War, a subject for which he became famous with The Red Badge of Courage.[216] Although similar to Crane's noted novel, The Little Regiment was believed to lack vigor and originality. Realizing the limitations of these tales, Crane wrote: "I have invented the sum of my invention with regard to war and this story keeps me in internal despair."[217] The Open Boat and Other Tales of Adventure (1898) contains thirteen short stories that deal with three periods in Crane's life: his Asbury Park boyhood, his trip to the West and Mexico in 1895, and his Cuban adventure in 1897.[218] This collection was well received and included several of his most critically successful works. His 1899 collection, The Monster and Other Stories, was similarly well received. Two posthumously published collections were not as successful. In August 1900 The Whilomville Stories were published, a collection of thirteen stories that Crane wrote during the last year of his life. The work deals almost exclusively with boyhood, and the stories are drawn from events occurring in Port Jervis, where Crane lived from the age of six to eleven.[219] Focusing on small-town America, the stories tend toward sentimentality, but remain perceptive of the lives of children. Wounds in the Rain, published in September 1900,[220] contains fictional tales based on Crane's reports for the World and the Journal during the Spanish–American War. These stories, which Crane wrote while desperately ill, include "The Price of the Harness" and "The Lone Charge of William B. Perkins" and are dramatic, ironic and sometimes humorous.[221] Despite Crane's prolific output, only four stories--"The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", and The Monster—have received extensive attention from scholars.[222] H. G. Wells considered "The Open Boat" to be "beyond all question, the crown of all his work", and it is one of the most frequently discussed of Crane's works.[223] Poetry[edit] Many red devils ran from my heart And out upon the page. They were so tiny The pen could mash them. And many struggled in the ink. It was strange To write in this red muck Of things from my heart. — Stephen Crane[224] Crane's poems, which he preferred to call "lines", are typically not given as much scholarly attention as his fiction; no anthology contained Crane's verse until 1926.[225] Although it is not certain when Crane began to write poetry seriously, he once said that his overall poetic aim was "to give my ideas of life as a whole, so far as I know it".[226] The poetic style used in both of his books of poetry, The Black Riders and Other Lines and War is Kind, was unconventional for the time in that it was written in free verse without rhyme, meter, or even titles for individual works. They are typically short in length; although several poems, such as "Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind", use stanzas and refrains, most do not.[227] Crane also differed from his peers and poets of later generations in that his work contains allegory, dialectic and narrative situations.[228] Critic Ruth Miller claimed that Crane wrote "an intellectual poetry rather than a poetry that evokes feeling, a poetry that stimulates the mind rather than arouses the heart".[226] In the most complexly organized poems, the significance of the states of mind or feelings is ambiguous, but Crane's poems tend to affirm certain elemental attitudes, beliefs, opinions and stances toward God, man and the universe.[226] The Black Riders in particular is essentially a dramatic concept and the poems provide continuity within the dramatic structure. There is also a dramatic interplay in which there is frequently a major voice reporting an incident seen ("In the desert / I saw a creature, naked, bestial") or experienced ("A learned man came to me once"). The second voice or additional voices represent a point of view which is revealed to be inferior; when these clash, a dominant attitude emerges.[229] Legacy[edit] Portrait of Crane. "When I Knew Stephen Crane" by Willa Cather, June 1900 MENU 0:00 00:18:05 (text) Problems playing this file? See media help. In four years, Crane published five novels, two volumes of poetry, three short story collections, two books of war stories, and numerous works of short fiction and reporting.[230] Today he is mainly remembered for The Red Badge of Courage, which is regarded as an American classic. The novel has been adapted several times for the screen, including John Huston's 1951 version.[231] By the time of his death, Crane had become one of the best known writers of his generation. His eccentric lifestyle, frequent newspaper reporting, association with other famous authors, and expatriate status made him somewhat of an international celebrity.[232] Although most stories about his life tended toward the romantic, rumors about his alleged drug use and alcoholism persisted long after his death.[233] By the early 1920s, Crane and his work were nearly forgotten. It was not until Thomas Beer published his biography in 1923, which was followed by editor Wilson Follett's The Work of Stephen Crane (1925–1927), that Crane's writing came to the attention of a scholarly audience.[234] Crane's reputation was then enhanced by faithful support from writer friends such as Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells and Ford Madox Ford, all of whom either published recollections or commented upon their time with Crane. John Berryman's 1950 biography of Crane further established him as an important American author. Since 1951 there has been a steady outpouring of articles, monographs and reprints in Crane scholarship.[235] Today, Crane is considered one of the most innovative writers of the 1890s.[236] His peers, including Conrad and James, as well as later writers such as Robert Frost, Ezra Pound and Willa Cather, hailed Crane as one of the finest creative spirits of his time.[237] His work was described by Wells as "the first expression of the opening mind of a new period, or, at least, the early emphatic phase of a new initiative."[199] Wells said that "beyond dispute", Crane was "the best writer of our generation, and his untimely death was an irreparable loss to our literature."[238] Conrad wrote that Crane was an "artist" and "a seer with a gift for rendering the significant on the surface of things and with an incomparable insight into primitive emotions".[239] Crane's work has proved inspirational for future writers; not only have scholars drawn similarities between Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and The Red Badge of Courage,[240] but Crane's fiction is thought to have been an important inspiration for Hemingway and his fellow Modernists.[241] In 1936, Hemingway wrote in The Green Hills of Africa that "The good writers are Henry James, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain. That's not the order they're good in. There is no order for good writers."[242] Crane's poetry is thought to have been a precursor to the Imagist movement,[243] and his short fiction has also influenced American literature. "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", The Monster and "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" are generally considered by critics to be examples of Crane's best work.[244] Several institutions and places have endeavored to keep Crane's legacy alive. Badenweiler and the house where he died became something of a tourist attraction for its fleeting association with the American author; Alexander Woollcott attested to the fact that, long after Crane's death, tourists would be directed to the room where he died.[245] Columbia University Rare Book and Manuscript Library has a collection of Crane and Taylor's personal correspondence dating from 1895 to 1908.[246] Near his brother Edmund's Sullivan County home in New York, where Crane stayed for a short time, a pond is named after him.[247] The Stephen Crane House in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where the author lived with his siblings for nine years, is operated as a museum dedicated to his life and work.[248] Syracuse University has an annual Stephen Crane Lecture Series which is sponsored by the Dikaia Foundation. Columbia University purchased much of the Stephen Crane materials held by Cora Crane at her death. The Crane Collection is one of the largest in the nation of his materials.[249] Columbia University had an exhibit: 'The Tall Swift Shadow of a Ship at Night': Stephen and Cora Crane, November 2, 1995 through February 16, 1996, about the lives of the couple, featuring letters and other documents and memorabilia.[249] *** Kathleen Mansfield Murry (née Beauchamp; 14 October 1888 – 9 January 1923) was a prominent New Zealand modernist short story writer and poet who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. At the age of 19, she left New Zealand and settled in England, where she became a friend of writers such as D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. Mansfield was diagnosed with extrapulmonary tuberculosis in 1917; the disease claimed her life at the age of 34. Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Moving to London 1.3 Travelling across Europe 1.4 Return to London 1.5 Contributing to Rhythm 1.6 Impact of World War I 1.7 Diagnosis of tuberculosis 1.8 Last years and death 2 Legacy 3 Works 3.1 Collections 3.2 Short stories 4 Biographies 5 Films and TV series about Mansfield 6 Novels featuring Mansfield 7 Plays featuring Mansfield 8 Adaptations of Mansfield's work 9 See also 10 References 11 External links Biography[edit] Early life[edit] Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 into a socially-prominent family in Wellington, New Zealand. Her grandfather was Arthur Beauchamp, who briefly represented the Picton electorate in Parliament. Her extended family included the author Countess Elizabeth von Arnim, and her great-great-uncle was Victorian artist Charles Robert Leslie. Her father Harold Beauchamp became the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand and was knighted in 1923.[1][2] Her mother was Annie Beauchamp, whose brother married the daughter of Richard Seddon. She had two older sisters, a younger sister and a younger brother, born in 1894.[3][2][4] The Mansfield family moved from Thorndon to the country suburb of Karori in 1893, for health reasons. Here Mansfield spent the happiest years of her childhood, and she used some of those memories as an inspiration for the short story "Prelude".[1] Katherine Mansfield House and Garden in Thorndon, Wellington Her first printed stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls' High School magazine (the family returned to Wellington proper in 1898),[1] in 1898 and 1899.[5] Her first formally published story "His Little Friend" appeared the following year in a society magazine, New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal.[6] In 1902 she became enamoured of Arnold Trowell, a cellist, although her feelings were for the most part not reciprocated.[7] Mansfield was herself an accomplished cellist, having received lessons from Trowell's father.[1] Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling alienated in New Zealand, and of how she had become disillusioned because of the repression of the Māori people. Māori characters are often portrayed in a sympathetic or positive light in her later stories, such as "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped".[3] Moving to London[edit] She moved to London in 1903, where she attended Queen's College along with her sisters. Mansfield recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed she would take up professionally,[7] but she also began contributing to the college newspaper with such dedication that she eventually became its editor.[3][5] She was particularly interested in the works of the French Symbolists and Oscar Wilde,[3] and she was appreciated among her peers for her vivacious and charismatic approach to life and work.[5] She met fellow writer Ida Baker (also known as Lesley Moore),[3] a South African, at the college, and they became lifelong friends.[1] Mansfield did not become involved in much political activity during her time in London. For example, she did not actively support the suffragette movement in the UK (women in New Zealand had gained the right to vote in 1893).[3] Travelling across Europe[edit] Mansfield travelled in Continental Europe between 1903 and 1906, staying mainly in Belgium and Germany. After finishing her schooling in England she returned to New Zealand and only then began in earnest to write short stories. She had several works published in the Native Companion (Australia), her first paid writing work, and by this time she had her heart set on becoming a professional writer.[5] This was also the first occasion on which she used the pseudonym "K. Mansfield".[7] She rapidly grew weary of the provincial New Zealand lifestyle and of her family, and two years later headed back to London.[3] Her father sent her an annual allowance of 100 pounds for the rest of her life.[1] In later years she expressed both admiration and disdain for New Zealand in her journals, but she was never able to return there because of her tuberculosis.[3] Mansfield had two romantic relationships with women that are notable for their prominence in her journal entries. She continued to have male lovers, and attempted to repress her feelings at certain times. Her first same-sex romantic relationship was with Maata Mahupuku (sometimes known as Martha Grace), a wealthy young Māori woman whom she had first met at Miss Swainson's school in Wellington and then again in London in 1906. In June 1907, she wrote: "I want Maata—I want her as I have had her—terribly. This is unclean I know but true." She often referred to Maata as Carlotta. She wrote about Maata in several short stories. Maata married in 1907, but it is claimed that she sent money to Mansfield in London.[8] The second relationship, with Edith Kathleen Bendall, took place from 1906 to 1908. Mansfield also professed her adoration for her in her journals.[9] Return to London[edit] After having returned to London in 1908, Mansfield quickly fell into a bohemian way of life. She published only one story and one poem during her first 15 months there.[5] Mansfield sought out the Trowell family for companionship, and while Arnold was involved with another woman, Mansfield embarked on a passionate affair with his brother Garnet.[7] By early 1909, she had become pregnant by Garnet though Trowell's parents disapproved of the relationship, and the two broke up. She then hastily entered into a marriage with George Bowden, a teacher of singing 11 years her senior;[10] they were married on 2 March, but she left him the same evening, before the marriage could be consummated.[7] After Mansfield had a brief reunion with Garnet, Mansfield's mother, Annie Beauchamp, arrived in 1909. She blamed the breakdown of the marriage to Bowden on a lesbian relationship between Mansfield and Baker, and she quickly had her daughter dispatched to the spa town of Bad Wörishofen in Bavaria, Germany. Mansfield miscarried after attempting to lift a suitcase on top of a cupboard. It is not known whether her mother knew of this miscarriage when she left shortly after arriving in Germany, but she cut Mansfield out of her will.[7] Mansfield's time in Bavaria had a significant effect on her literary outlook. In particular, she was introduced to the works of Anton Chekhov. Some biographers accuse her of plagiarizing Chekhov with one of her early short stories.[11] She returned to London in January 1910. She then published more than a dozen articles in Alfred Richard Orage's socialist magazine The New Age, and became a friend and lover of Beatrice Hastings, who lived with Orage.[12] Her experiences of Germany formed the foundation of her first published collection, In a German Pension (1911), which she later described as "immature".[7][5] Contributing to Rhythm[edit] Soon afterward, Mansfield submitted a lightweight story to a new avant-garde magazine called Rhythm. The piece was rejected by the magazine's editor John Middleton Murry, who requested something darker. Mansfield responded with "The Woman at the Store", a tale of murder and mental illness.[3] Mansfield was inspired at this time by Fauvism.[3][7] Mansfield in 1912 Mansfield and Murry began a relationship in 1911 that culminated in their marriage in 1918, although she left him twice, in 1911 and 1913.[13] The publisher of Rhythm, Charles Granville (sometimes known as Stephen Swift), absconded to Europe In October 1912, and left Murry responsible for the debts the magazine had accumulated. Mansfield pledged her father's allowance towards the magazine, but it was discontinued, being reorganised as The Blue Review in 1913 and folding after three issues.[7] Mansfield and Murry were persuaded by their friend Gilbert Cannan to rent a cottage next to his windmill in Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire in 1913, in an attempt to alleviate Mansfield's ill health.[14] In January 1914, the couple moved to Paris, in the hope that a change of setting would make writing easier for both of them. Mansfield wrote only one story during her time there, "Something Childish But Very Natural", before Murry was recalled to London to declare bankruptcy.[7] Mansfield had a brief affair with the French writer Francis Carco in 1914. Her visit to him in Paris in February 1915[7] is retold in her story "An Indiscreet Journey".[3] Impact of World War I[edit] Katherine Mansfield's life and work were changed in 1915 by the death of her beloved younger brother, Leslie Heron "Chummie" Beauchamp,[15] as a New Zealand soldier in France. She began to take refuge in nostalgic reminiscences of their childhood in New Zealand.[16] In a poem describing a dream she had shortly after his death, she wrote: By the remembered stream my brother stands Waiting for me with berries in his hands... "These are my body. Sister, take and eat."[3] At the beginning of 1917, Mansfield and Murry separated,[3] although he continued to visit her at her new apartment.[7] Ida Baker, whom Mansfield often called, with a mixture of affection and disdain, her "wife", moved in with her shortly afterwards.[10] Mansfield entered into her most prolific period of writing after 1916, which began with several stories, including "Mr Reginald Peacock's Day" and "A Dill Pickle", being published in The New Age. Virginia Woolf and her husband Leonard, who had recently set up the Hogarth Press, approached her for a story, and Mansfield presented to them "Prelude", which she had begun writing in 1915 as "The Aloe". The story depicts a New Zealand family moving house. Diagnosis of tuberculosis[edit] In December 1917, Mansfield was diagnosed with tuberculosis. For part of spring and summer 1918, she joined her close friend the American painter Anne Estelle Rice at Looe in Cornwall, in the hope of recovering. There, Rice painted a famous portrait of her dressed in red, a vibrant colour Mansfield liked and suggested herself.[17] The painting known as the Portrait of Katherine Mansfield is now exhibited in Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand. Mansfield wrote in a letter to Murry about being Rice's model: A. came early and began the great painting — me in that red, brick red frock with flowers everywhere. It's awfully interesting, even now. I painted her in my way as she painted me in hers: her eyes … little blue flowers plucked this morning.[18] Then, rejecting the idea of staying in a sanatorium on the grounds that it would cut her off from writing,[5] she moved abroad to avoid the English winter.[7] She stayed at a half-deserted, cold hotel in Bandol, France, where she became depressed but continued to produce stories, including "Je ne parle pas français". "Bliss", the story that lent its name to her second collection of stories in 1920, was also published in 1918. Her health continued to deteriorate and she had her first lung haemorrhage in March.[7] By April, Mansfield's divorce from Bowden had been finalised, and she and Murry married, only to part again two weeks later.[7] They came together again, however, and in March 1919 Murry became editor of The Athenaeum, a magazine for which Mansfield wrote more than 100 book reviews (collected posthumously as Novels and Novelists). During the winter of 1918–19 she and Baker stayed in a villa in San Remo, Italy. Their relationship came under strain during this period; after she wrote to Murry to express her feelings of depression, he stayed over Christmas.[7] Although her relationship with Murry became increasingly distant after 1918[7] and the two often lived apart,[13] this intervention of his spurred her on, and she wrote "The Man Without a Temperament", the story of an ill wife and her long-suffering husband. Mansfield followed her first collection of short stories, Bliss (1920), with another collection, The Garden Party, published in 1922. Last years and death[edit] Mansfield spent her last years seeking increasingly unorthodox cures for her tuberculosis. In February 1922, she consulted the Russian physician Ivan Manoukhin, whose "revolutionary" treatment, which consisted of bombarding her spleen with X-rays, caused Mansfield to develop heat flashes and numbness in her legs. In October 1922, Mansfield moved to Georges Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France, where she was put under the care of Olgivanna Lazovitch Hinzenburg (who later married Frank Lloyd Wright). As a guest rather than a pupil of Gurdjieff, Mansfield was not required to take part in the rigorous routine of the institute,[19] but she spent much of her time there with her mentor, Alfred Richard Orage, and her last letters inform Murry of her attempts to apply some of Gurdjieff's teachings to her own life.[20] Mansfield suffered a fatal pulmonary haemorrhage in January 1923, after running up a flight of stairs.[21] She died on 9 January, and was buried at Cimetiere d’Avon, Avon (near Fontainebleau), France.[22] Mansfield was a prolific writer in the final years of her life. Much of her work remained unpublished at her death, and Murry took on the task of editing and publishing it in two additional volumes of short stories (The Dove's Nest in 1923, and Something Childish in 1924); a volume of poems; The Aloe; Novels and Novelists; and collections of her letters and journals. Legacy[edit] The following high schools in New Zealand have a house named after Mansfield: Whangarei Girls' High School; Rangitoto College, Westlake Girls' High School, and Macleans College in Auckland; Tauranga Girls' College; Wellington Girls' College; Rangiora High School in North Canterbury, and Southland Girls' High School in Invercargill. She has also been honoured at Karori Normal School in Wellington, which has a stone monument dedicated to her with a plaque commemorating her work and her time at the school, and at Samuel Marsden Collegiate School (previously Fitzherbert Terrace School) with a painting, and an award in her name. Her birthplace in Thorndon, Wellington has been preserved as the Katherine Mansfield House and Garden, and a park is dedicated to her. A street in Menton, France, where she lived and wrote, is named after her.[23] A fellowship is offered annually to enable a New Zealand writer to work at her former home, the Villa Isola Bella, and New Zealand's pre-eminent short story competition is named in her honour.[24] Mansfield was the subject of a 1973 BBC miniseries, A Picture of Katherine Mansfield, starring Vanessa Redgrave. The six-part series included depictions of Mansfield's life and adaptations of her short stories. In 2011, a television biopic titled Bliss was made of her early beginnings as a writer in New Zealand; in this she was played by Kate Elliott.[25] Works[edit] Library resources about Katherine Mansfield Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries By Katherine Mansfield Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries Collections[edit] In a German Pension (1911), ISBN 1-86941-014-9 Bliss and Other Stories (1920) The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922), ISBN 1-86941-016-5 The Doves' Nest and Other Stories (1923), ISBN 1-86941-017-3 The Montana Stories (1923) (Republished in 2001 by Persephone Books) Poems (1923), ISBN 0-19-558199-7 Something Childish and Other Stories (1924), ISBN 1-86941-018-1, first published in the US as The Little Girl The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927, 1954), ISBN 0-88001-023-1 The Letters of Katherine Mansfield (2 vols., 1928–29) The Aloe (1930), ISBN 0-86068-520-9 Novels and Novelists (1930), ISBN 0-403-02290-8 The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield (1937) The Scrapbook of Katherine Mansfield (1939) The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield (1945, 1974), ISBN 0-14-118368-3 Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913–1922 (1951), ISBN 0-86068-945-X The Urewera Notebook (1978), ISBN 0-19-558034-6 The Critical Writings of Katherine Mansfield (1987), ISBN 0-312-17514-0 The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield (4 vols., 1984–96) Vol. 1, 1903–17, ISBN 0-19-812613-1 Vol. 2, 1918–19, ISBN 0-19-812614-X Vol. 3, 1919–20, ISBN 0-19-812615-8 Vol. 4, 1920–21, ISBN 0-19-818532-4 The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks (2 vols., 1997), ISBN 0-8166-4236-2 The collected poems of Katherine Mansfield, edited by Gerri Kimber and Claire Davison, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, [2016], ISBN 978-1-4744-1727-3 Short stories[edit] "The Tiredness of Rosabel" (1908) "Germans at Meat" (1911 from in a German Pension) "A Birthday" (1911 from in a German Pension) "A Blaze" (1911 from in a German Pension) "A Truthful Adventure" (1911) "The Journey to Bruges" (1911) "How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped" (1912) "New Dresses" (1912) "The Little Girl" (1912) "The Woman at the Store" (1912) "Bains Turcs" (1913) "Millie" (1913) "Ole Underwood" (1913) "Pension Séguin" (1913) "Violet" (1913) "Something Childish But Very Natural" (1914) "The Apple-Tree" (1915) "The Little Governess" (1915) "Spring Pictures" (1915) "A Dill Pickle" (1917) "Feuille d'Album" (1917) "Je ne parle pas français" (1917) "Late at Night" (1917) "Pictures" (1917) "See-Saw" (1917) "The Black Cap" (1917) "Two Tuppenny Ones, Please" (1917) "Prelude" (1918) "Bliss" (1918) "Carnation" (1918) "A Suburban Fairy Tale" (1919) "The Wrong House" (1919) "An Indiscreet Journey" (1920) "Bank Holiday" (1920) "Miss Brill" (1920) "Mr Reginald Peacock's Day" (1920) "Poison" (1920) "Psychology" (1920) "Revelations" (1920) "Sun and Moon" (1920) "The Escape" (1920) "The Lady's Maid" (1920) "The Singing Lesson" (1920) "The Wind Blows" (1920) "The Young Girl" (1920) "This Flower" (1920) "An Ideal Family" (1921) "Marriage à la Mode" (1921) "The Voyage" (1921) "Her First Ball" (1921) "Mr and Mrs Dove" (1921) "Life of Ma Parker" (1921) "Sixpence" (1921) "The Daughters of the Late Colonel" (1921) "The Stranger" (1921) "The Man Without a Temperament" (1921) "At the Bay" (1922) "The Fly" (1922) "The Garden Party" (1922) "A Cup of Tea" (1922) "The Doll's House" (1922) "A Married Man's Story" (1923) "Honeymoon" (1923) "The Canary" (1923) "Taking the Veil" (1923)  ebay3764

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