Caresse Crosby
Caresse Crosby, born Mary Phelps "Polly" Jacob on April 20, 1892, in New York City, was a notable figure in early 20th-century literary and cultural circles. Coming from a privileged background, she was well-educated and engaged creatively from a young age, even inventing the backless brassiere, for which she received a patent in 1913. After a brief marriage to banker Richard Peabody and navigating the challenges of his return from World War I, including his struggles with addiction, she embarked on a prominent affair with Harry Crosby, which defied societal norms of the time. The couple moved to Paris in 1922, where Caresse adopted a bohemian lifestyle and changed her name. They established Black Sun Press, publishing works from influential writers such as James Joyce and Ezra Pound. Following Harry's tragic suicide in 1929, Caresse continued her literary endeavors and later moved to Rome, where she pursued new projects until her death on January 23, 1970. Her legacy includes her contributions to literature and the arts, as well as her adaptation to a life that challenged conventional expectations.
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Caresse Crosby
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- Born: April 20, 1892
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: January 24, 1970
- Place of death: Rome, Italy
Biography
Caresse Crosby was born Mary Phelps “Polly” Jacob on April 20, 1892, in New York, New York, to William and Mary (Phelps) Jacob. She grew up with what she termed a “crystal chandelier background” of prominence, attending the finest private schools, and debuting at the Court of St. James. In the fashion her lifestyle afforded, Polly wrote poetry and news for a paper she founded during her school years and just as happily invented such designs as the backless brassiere—a patent for which she sold for fifteen hundred dollars in 1913. Polly soon became one the most supportive patrons to artists and writers of Paris in the 1920’s.
She married young Boston banker Richard Peabody in 1915 and had two children, Billy and Polly. Moderately happy, her new life in Boston was altered when her husband enlisted for World War I. Further changes came when Richard returned with an alcohol addiction. She found instant romance with Harry Crosby, an eccentric man six years her junior whom she met at a social outing and with whom she became entrenched in a scandalous, adulterous affair—one they both flaunted openly, much to the appall of Boston society.
After securing a proper divorce from Peabody, the two married on September 9, 1922, and two days later moved to Paris with her children. There, Crosby delightedly engaged in a bohemian lifestyle that all but denounced her proper high society upbringing, officially changed her name to Caresse, and paid to publish her first book of poetry (in 1925)—a composite of rhyming love lyrics and her watercolors.
Besides her second book (in 1926), which was published by Houghton Mifflin, all of her and Harry’s works were self- published at the couple’s expense. Though their publishing outfit, Black Sun Press, was established to get their own works printed, their collaboration brought to the world the works of such writers as James Joyce, Ezra Pound, Kay Boyle, Hart Crane, D. H. Lawrence, and Archibald MacLeish, as well as Bob Brown, Eugene Jolas, and other expatriate authors.
The joy of escape into what would make literary history turned sour when Harry committed suicide with lover Josephine Rotch Bigelow on December 10, 1929. Caresse continued to publish Harry's and others’ works, took on new ventures, and returned to the U.S. in the mid-1930’s, only to buy and move into a castle in Rome. In the 1960’s she published, bought a mountaintop in Cyprus—to bring together politicos and artists of the world—and planned for a great geodome on the land that would continue her literary patronship. However, she died on January 23, 1970, leaving behind grandiose plans and an eccentric reputation.