George Sterling
George Sterling was an American poet born in Sag Harbor, New York, into a family with a strong New England heritage. Initially intended for a religious vocation due to his family's Catholic background, Sterling's path shifted as he became involved in the literary scene of California. After working in his uncle's real estate business, he immersed himself in poetry, gaining recognition through connections with notable figures such as Ambrose Bierce and Jack London. Sterling's literary career began in earnest with the publication of his first poetry collection in 1903, which received mixed reviews for its style.
He played a significant role in establishing an artists' colony in Carmel, California, during the early 20th century. However, personal tragedies, including the suicide of his friend Nora May French and the dissolution of his marriage, marked a decline in his career and mental health. Despite this, he produced a body of patriotic poetry during World War I and his last successful work, the verse play "Lilith." Sterling's struggles with alcoholism and the loss of close friends culminated in his tragic suicide in 1926, leaving behind a complex legacy in American literature.
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George Sterling
- Born: December 1, 1869
- Birthplace: Sag Harbor, New York
- Died: November 17, 1926
- Place of death: San Francisco, California
Biography
George Sterling was born into an old New England family in the onetime whaling town of Sag Harbor, New York. His father was a physician. He was educated at St. Charles College, in Maryland, where his parents, converts from the Episcopal Church to the Roman Catholic, sent him in hopes that he would become a priest. When that plan failed, his parents sent him to work for his uncle in his Oakland, California, real-estate business.
Already enthusiastic about poetry, Sterling soon met several important literary figures, including poet Joaquin Miller and Ambrose Bierce, whom Sterling admired extravagantly and who in turn encouraged Sterling in his efforts to write. From that association, Sterling began to be identified with the Bohemian life of the West Coast.
In 1896, Sterling married Caroline Rand. He continued to work on his still-unpublished poetry while selling real estate for his uncle, undiscouraged even though he never advanced in his uncle’s company. Around 1900, Sterling met Jack London, and the two became inseparable friends, a fact which strained his marriage, as did his wife’s growing awareness of his many love affairs.
Sterling published his first collection of poems in 1903. Bierce praised it highly; other critics condemned its excessive rhetoric and its use of Victorian diction. In 1905, Sterling gave up his business career and moved to Carmel, where he became one of the founders of the artists’ colony there, a community that grew under Sterling’s promotion as well as from the aftereffects of the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906.
Sterling’s second book was published by Bierce in his magazine, where Bierce named Sterling as the greatest American poet. Sterling’s career declined after 1907, the year that the poet Nora May French committed suicide in his home. Shortly after that, his marriage failed, his brother died, and Bierce disappeared into the Mexican desert. Sterling, who had inherited his father’s susceptibility to alcoholism, began drinking very heavily in the face of these losses.
In an effort to pull himself together, Sterling moved back to New York, but he was unable to find a job there and returned to do journalism on the West Coast. In 1916, London committed suicide. Sterling distracted himself with concern over the war in Europe; he wrote a body of enthusiastically patriotic poetry in support of the American role in that war while at the same time he continued to drink excessively.
His last successful work was a verse play, Lilith, which Sterling considered his best art, but that success was diminished by the suicide of his former wife in 1918. Sterling spent his last years in the Bohemian Club in San Francisco, during which time he became friends with journalist and critic H. L. Mencken. He committed suicide in 1926.