Shadows of the Sun: The Diaries of Harry Crosby

by Harry Crosby, Edward Germain (Editor)

Crosby's diaries from 1922 through 1929

Genres: Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Harry Crosby was a poet and publisher, and an heir of the Morgan family fortune.

Reviews

[Derek Fenner · Rating 4 out of 5]

ONE MUST BE BORN AND DIE IN THE SAME PICTURE

Sun Ring
I fly alone
Cocktails &
the black trees
against the dying day
like eyes within
a grave
I am not of the ground
I am of the sun
and I level the
brief history of wind

[Bill Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

The diary of a lost rake, Harry Crosby held almost nothing back in this daily chronicle of the final years of his short life. Had he not been a publisher of note, his life would still be interesting as a cross-section of the mad generation that washed up in Paris and other places in the wake of the war that ended no wars. An aspiring poet -- the examples in the diary are passionate but far from masterworks -- and, by most usages of the word, a wastrel who threw away a small fortune on horses and follies, his journal is frequently tortured, ecstatic, and often consumed with thoughts of death. Someday soon, I'll follow this with his wife Caresse's memoir. She must have been an amazing woman, the light and muscle behind Black Sun Press, an accessory to dreams, and a libertine in her own right, and it's difficult not to see Crosby's suicide as the ultimate act of infidelity to a mate who certainly deserved better.

[Jessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

An American expat in Paris in the 20s, Crosby uses his astonishing powers of observation to write brief diary entries that still manage to capture the magic of the time.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of tragedy, dissipation--no, downright decadence--and metaphysical pish-tosh. You do rather want to drink with the poor, mad, doomed son of a bitch.

[Robert Vaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What enthralled me most with this book, is that it's actually a Black Sun Press original! Crosby is referred to as a last member of the Lost Generation- ex-pats (think Hemingway or Ezra Pound or F. Scott Fitzgerald) with excess resources who drank, did drugs (opium, absinthe, pills) and lived lives of grand debauchery. And yet, Crosby and his wife, Caresse, started Black Sun Press, the longest surviving printing press from any American in Paris during the 1920's, 30's and 40's (Caresse continued the press after Harry's early death). And his diaries entries in which they either hobnobbed or worked with Hart Crane, Kay Boyle, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Proust, Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach (owner of the infamous Shakespeare and Company bookstore), Huxley, Cocteau, MacLeish, Cummings. And occasionally, Crosby, a poet himself, included lines that were stunning: 'Your ears are the tiny slippers for the feet of my voice.'

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

any guy that sees Pompeii and can only complain that suicide by jumping in would be infeasible because you'd be to maimed and incapable before you got close enough to jump in... well surprisingly enough, he did kill him self later. his wife put a little thought into their suicide pact kind of thought it was crazy- he got a mistress and she was willing to go all the way.

[Claudine De · Rating 5 out of 5]

We are currently in development of a feature film on Harry Crosby please feel free to look at www.montinifilms.com