Crane, Stephen

Two autograph letters signed ("Stephen Crane"), together 4 pages of text (each 7 3/4 x 5 in; 200 x 128 mm), Hartwood, New York, 11 and 29 November, [ 1895], to Elbert Hubbard in East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo); in brown ink on rectos of five sheets of laid paper, the three sheets of the 11 November letter professionally backed and with  several small holes in the upper margins repaired, stains present in two of these margins; with the original stamped envelope for the 29 November letter addressed by Crane.

Maurice F. Neville (Sotheby's, Part I, 13 April 2004, lot 36)

The Correspondence of Stephen Crane, eds. S. Wertheim and P. Sorrentino, nos. 130 and 147; see also their The Crane Log.

Two autograph letters signed ("Stephen Crane"), together 4 pages of text (each 7 3/4 x 5 in; 200 x 128 mm), Hartwood, New York, 11 and 29 November, [ 1895], to Elbert Hubbard in East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo); in brown ink on rectos of five sheets of laid paper, the three sheets of the 11 November letter professionally backed and with several small holes in the upper margins repaired, stains present in two of these margins; with the original stamped envelope for the 29 November letter addressed by Crane.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Crane and the famous Society of the Philistines Dinner.  In 1894, while trying to find a publisher for his The Red Badge of Courage, Crane met the colorful Elbert Hubbard, editor of  The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest, and founder of the arty utopian society, the Roycrofters, in East Aurora. Hubbard encouraged Crane, published his poems in nearly every issue of The Philistine in 1895, and in the fall of that year—The Red Badge was issued at the end of September—advanced the idea of having a testimonial dinner in honor of the young writer, to which authors, publishers, and other "literary" people  would be invited. "Crane was still very young [not yet 24], very poor, and very much in need of encouragement. Enthusiastic reviews were rare, critics were cautious. He was almost pathetically flattered—and somewhat frightened—by the prospect of such recognition" (Columbia University Libraries, 1956 Crane Exhibition, p. 26).

In his letter of  11 November, Crane responds to the preliminary printed invitation from the Society of Philistines: "You must have known of course what an astonishment and delight the invitation ... would be to me and I need scarcely announce to you here that I have accepted it. Of course I am a very simple person and I am dejected when I think of the disappointment of my friends, the Philistines, if they have been good enough to form any opinion at all favorable of my ability or my personality. But I am delighted with the invitation of course and though I was amazed that I occurred to you at all, I was blissfully conscious of the honor. Name any date ... Remember that I would come to Buffalo any time possible if I were to meet none of its citizens  but the courageous and stout warriors who conduct the Philistine Magazine. I am at Hartwood writing a novel [The Third Violet, published 1897] which must end in forty-five more days but I have it half finished ..."  29 November:  "I shall appear promptly in Buffalo on December 19^th. The [formal] invitation reached me today and it made still greater reason for me to cudgel my brains, as to why you distinguished me. I shall make a strong effort to appear as a man not altogether unworthy of this. I see that you allowed me liberty in the manner of a speech. There is where you did another clever thing. I would be very bad at a regular speech but I will do my best in some way. I am delighted with the entire affair although shaky still about my own part in it ..." Crane letters of this nature are very scarce.

With: [Crane]. "'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things.'"  [East Aurora: Roycroft Printing Shop, 1895]. 8 pp., 9 x 6 in., 230 x 155mm, stitched as issued, dust-soiled and slightly damp-stained. A souvenir of the dinner containing tributes to Crane from prominent literary figures who did not attend, the menu of the dinner, and the first printing of a new Crane poem. BAL 4072.

The dinner took place on 19 December at the Genesee Hotel in Buffalo with thirty-one in all in attendance. The Society of Philistines had invited 200 men of letters; some just stayed away thinking it was some sort of an Elbert Hubbard self-promotion scheme. Crane's biographer describes the event: "The banquet intended to honor Crane ended as a farce, in an orgy of chaos and bickering among the ... guests, many of them newspapermen and drunk, who had assembled not so much to honor Crane as to enjoy the sport of ribald interruptions and pseudo-friendly guffaws ... [Crane] no doubt had a good time, but he had thought the occasion was to be a tribute to him as a literary man, and it was hardly that" (Stallman, Stephen Crane, pp. 163–65).