Anne Moncure Crane

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Anne Moncure Crane was a novelist during the 1860's. Many of Crane's writings explored women's sexual desires. Such content caused her works to be controversial in some quarters during the post-Civil War era. Author Henry James, among others, was influenced by Crane's books.

Crane was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1838. Her family was engaged in mercantile trade, which allowed the Cranes to enjoy a comfortably middle class lifestyle. An ancestor, Thomas Stone, had signed the Declaration of Independence - an illustrious connection that would later be attached to one of Crane's literary characters. Education of the young girl was entrusted to a local pastor, the Reverend N.A. Morrison.

Around the age of twenty, Crane and a number of her friends competed to see which could write the best novel. The result of the friendly competition was the work that would set Crane upon her distinguished path – the novel Emily Chester. At the heart of the work was the dilemma of the title character, who married a respectable, if boring, middle class gentleman, and then later fell in love with a more dashing man of her community. The fierce moral debate that subsequently raged inside Emily - over rather to stay faithful to her husband, or to pursue her passion for her real love - eventually had a deleterious effect on her physical health. A conclusion came about, morbidly, with Emily’s death.

Crane’s novel was written in 1858 and published six years later by a Boston company. Emily Chester proved surprisingly popular. Ten editions were ultimately printed, and readers in Europe were just as attracted to the story as Americans. A dramatic play based on the book was even created, taking advantage of the intriguing new set-up that Crane had introduced – the respectable woman tempted to the verge of adultery, and the resulting effect that the moral predicament has on her personally.

Crane married Augustus Seemuller, a merchant, in 1869. They left Baltimore to settle in New York City. Crane thereafter resided in relative comfort, with the luxury of being able to tour Europe. She died in Germany in 1872, at the age of thirty-four.

[edit] Sources

• Judith E. Funston. "Crane, Anne Moncure"; http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-00375.html; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000
• Alfred Habegger, Henry James and the “Woman Business” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).