Columbia University New York, N.Y. 10027 Office of Public Information (212) 854-5573
Nov. 2 - Feb, 16, 1996, Mon., 12-7:45 P.M., Tues.-Fri., 9 A.M.-4:45 P.M. (Closed Nov. 7, 20-24; Dec. 25, 26; Jan. 1, 2). Call to confirm hours: (212) 854-5153.
The life and literary career of novelist Stephen Crane and his unconventional common-law wife, Cora, are chronicled in a new exhibition at Columbia University to celebrate the centennial of The Red Badge of Courage, his classic novel of the Civil War.
The 120 items on view in Columbia's Rare Book and Manuscript Library November 2 through February, 16, 1996, include signed letters from Joseph Conrad, Henry James, H.G.Wells and William Dean Howells, first editions of The Red Badge and Crane's New York slum novel, Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, original manuscripts, scrapbooks, photographs and memorabilia, including Crane's pocket watch. Located in Butler Library on Columbia's campus at Broadway and 116th Street, the exhibition is open to the public Monday from 12 to 7:45 P.M. and Tuesday through Friday from 9 A.M. to 4:45 P.M.; admission is free. Columbia's Crane Collection, among the largest in the nation, consists mainly of materials owned by Cora Crane at her death in 1910.
Professor Stanley Wertheim of William Paterson College, a leading Crane scholar and collector, will give a gallery talk on Crane at 6 P.M. December 7 in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It is open to the public. First editions, signed manuscripts and letters from Professor Wertheim's personal Crane collection will be on display in another exhibition celebrating the Red Badge centennial at the Grolier Club, 47 E. 60th St., November 30 through January 12.
Crane died of tuberculosis in 1900 at age 28, having achieved celebrity four and a half years earlier with the publication of Red Badge. A pioneering realist, he had convincingly portrayed New York City tenement life in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets in 1892 and had written compelling short stories based on his own adventures and on small town life, many of which depict race relations in the North at the turn of the century.
Born in 1871 in Newark, N.J., Crane was the son of a prominent Methodist minister. He attended Lafayette College and Syracuse University, worked as a reporter in New Jersey, and moved to New York, where he lived a bohemian life and wrote Red Badge, a psychological novel about the Civil War.
Cora Taylor met the young writer when he arrived in Jacksonville, Fla., on his way to cover the Cuban war for independence and maintained a tumultuous relationship with him until his death. The madam of an elegant brothel called the Hotel de Dream, she took his name as his common-law wife and travelled with him to Greece, to cover the Greco-Turkish war for the New York press. Billed as the first female war correspondent, she wrote under the pen name Imogene Carter. After the war ended, the Cranes settled in England, where they socialized with literary luminaries including Conrad, James and Wells.
Following his death, Cora unsuccessfully attempted a literary career of her own and then opened another bordello in Jacksonville. Columbia purchased many Crane papers from her estate. In 1974 the state of Florida presented Columbia with the contents of her safe deposit box.
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