Francis Marion Crawford

• Born — 2 August 1854 • Birthplace — Bagni di Lucca, Grand Duchy of Tuscany • Died — 9 April 1909 • Place of death — Villa Crawford, Sant'Agnello • Education — St Paul's School • Alma Mater — Cambridge University University of Heidelberg University of Rome Harvard University • Occupation — Writer • Parents — Thomas Crawford Louisa Cutler Ward • Children — 4 • Relatives — Mary Crawford Fraser (sister) Julia Ward Howe (aunt)

Crawford was born in Bagni di Lucca, in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, on August 2, 1854. He was the only son of the American sculptor Thomas Crawford and Louisa Cutler Ward. His sister was the writer Mary Crawford Fraser (aka Mrs. Hugh Fraser), and he was the nephew of Julia Ward Howe, the American poet. After his father's death in 1857, his mother remarried to Luther Terry, with whom she had Crawford's half-sister, Margaret Ward Terry, who later became the wife of Winthrop Astor Chanler. He studied successively at St Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire; Cambridge University; University of Heidelberg; and the University of Rome. In 1879, he went to India, where he studied Sanskrit and edited The Indian Herald in Allahabad. While there Crawford came across the jewel trader A. M. Jacob, who was the inspiration for the main character of his first novel. Returning to America in February 1881, he continued to study Sanskrit at Harvard University for a year and for two years contributed to various periodicals, mainly The Critic. Early in 1882, he established his lifelong close friendship with Isabella Stewart Gardner. During this period he lived most of the time in Boston at his aunt Julia Ward Howe's house and in the company of his uncle, Sam Ward. His family was concerned about his financial prospects. His mother had hoped he could train in Boston for a career as an operatic baritone based on his private renditions of Schubert lieder. In January 1882, George Henschel, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, assessed his prospects and determined Crawford would "never be able to sing in perfect tune". Ward suggested that he try writing about his years in India, particularly urging him to write a novel based on Jacob's exploits there, and helped him develop contacts with New York publishers.

• Illustration — Francis Marion Crawford, ca. 1904 In December 1882, he produce his first novel, Mr Isaacs, a sketch of modern Anglo-Indian life mingled with a touch of Oriental mystery. It had an immediate success, and Dr Claudius (1883) followed promptly. In May 1883, he returned to Italy, where he made his permanent home. He lived at the historic Hotel Cocumella in Sorrento during 1885 and settled permanently in Sant'Agnello, where in the fall he bought the Villa Renzi that became Villa Crawford. More than half his novels are set in Italy. He wrote three long historical studies of Italy and was well advanced with a history of Rome in the Middle Ages when he died. This may explain why Marion Crawford's books stand apart from any distinctively American current in literature. Year by year Crawford published a number of successful novels. However his 1896 novel Adam Johnstone's Son was thought by the late nineteenth century English novelist George Gissing to be "rubbish". Late in the 1890s, Crawford began to write his historical works. These are: Ave Roma Immortalis (1898), Rulers of the South (1900) renamed Southern Italy and Sicily and The Rulers of the South in 1905 for the American market, and Gleanings from Venetian History (1905) with the American title Salvae Venetia, reissued in 1909 as Venice; the Place and the People. In these, his intimate knowledge of local Italian history combines with the romanticist's imaginative faculty to excellent effect. His shorter book Constantinople (1895) belongs to this category. After most of his fictional works had been published, most came to think he was a gifted narrator; and his books of fiction, full of historic vitality and dramatic characterization, became widely popular among readers to whom the realism of problems or the eccentricities of subjective analysis were repellent. In The Novel: What It Is (1893), he defended his literary approach, self-conceived as a combination of romanticism and realism, defining the art form in terms of its marketplace and audience. The novel, he wrote, is "a marketable commodity" and "intellectual artistic luxury" (8, 9) that "must amuse, indeed, but should amuse reasonably, from an intellectual point of view.... Its intention is to amuse and please, and certainly not to teach and preach; but in order to amuse well it must be a finely-balanced creation...." (82). The Saracinesca series is perhaps known to be his best work, with the third in the series, Don Orsino (1892) set against the background of a real estate bubble, told with effective concision. The second volume is Sant' Ilario [Hilary] (1889). A fourth book in the series, Corleone (1897), was the first major treatment of the Mafia in literature, and used the now-familiar but then-original device of a priest unable to testify to a crime because of the Seal of the Confessional; the novel is not one of his major works, having failed to live up to the standard set by the books earlier in the series. Crawford ended Rulers of the South (1900) with a chapter about the Sicilian Mafia. Crawford himself was fondest of Khaled: A Tale of Arabia (1891), a story of a genie (genius is Crawford's word) who becomes human, which was reprinted (1971) in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series of the early 1970s. A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1890) was dramatized, and had considerable popularity on the stage as well as in its novel form; and in 1902 an original play from his pen, Francesca da Rimini, was produced in Paris by his friend Sarah Bernhardt. Crawford's best known dramatization was that of The White Sister (1909). Its main actress was Viola Allen, whose first film was the 1915 film of this novel; it was filmed again in 1923 and 1933. In the Palace of the King (1900) was filmed in 1915 and 1923; Mr. Isaacs (1882) was filmed in 1931 as Son of India. Several of his short stories, such as "The Upper Berth" (1886; written in 1885), "For the Blood Is the Life" (1905, a vampiress tale), "The Dead Smile" (1899), and "The Screaming Skull" (1908), are often-anthologized classics of the horror genre. An essay on Crawford's weird tales can be found in S. T. Joshi's The Evolution of the Weird Tale (2004); there are many other essays and introductions. The collected weird stories were posthumously published in 1911 as Wandering Ghosts in the U.S. and as Uncanny Tales in the UK, both without the long-forgotten "The King's Messenger" (1907). The present definitive edition is that edited by Richard Dalby as Uncanny Tales and published by the Tartarus Press (1997; 2008). Crawford's novella Man Overboard! (1903) is often overlooked, but belongs with his supernatural works. In 1901, the American Macmillan firm began a deluxe uniform edition of his novels, as reprintings required. In 1904 the P. F. Collier Co. (N. Y.) was authorized to publish a 25-volume edition, later increased to 32 volumes. Around 1914 the subscription firm McKinlay, Stone, Mackenzie was authorized to publish an edition using the Macmillan binding decorations. In 1919 the American Macmillan firm published the "Sorrento Edition". They also had issued some first American editions and reprints in a uniform binding from 1891 through 1899. The British Macmillan firm used two separate uniform bindings from 1889 until after 1910. Crawford wrote numerous articles for major periodicals and a few contributions to books. See the section "Bibliographical History" in An F. Marion Crawford Companion (1981) by John C. Moran.

In 1880, Crawford converted to Roman Catholicism. In October 1884 he married Elizabeth Berdan, the daughter of the American Civil War Union General Hiram Berdan. They had two sons and two daughters, Eleanor, Harold, Clara and Bertram. Crawford died at Sorrento on Good Friday 1909 at Villa Crawford of a heart attack. It was the result of a severe lung injury ten years previous, caused by inhalation of toxic gases at a glass-smelting works in Colorado, which happened during his American lecture tour in the winter of 1897–1898. He was gathering technical information for his historical novel Marietta (1901), that describes glass-making in late medieval Venice. After his death, his widow sued for breach of contract related to the production of Crawford's novels into a film.

• Mr. Isaacs: A Tale of Modern India (1882) • Dr. Claudius (1883) • To Leeward (1884), actually late 1883. The second American edition (Macmillan, 1893) is the only novel that Crawford substantively revised. • A Roman Singer (1884); Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig, Vol. 2254 of the Collection of British Authors. All of Crawford's novels, except for Love in Idleness (1893), were authorized by him for inclusion in his friend Baron Tauchnitz's series Collection of British Authors, whose name was later changed to Collection of British and American Authors. The Tauchnitz editions do not take bibliographical precedence over the British and United States editions. See the Crawford section of the Bibliography of American Literature. • An American Politician (1884); U.S. title-page has 1885. • Zoroaster (1885), historical novel about the Persian religious leader. • A Tale of a Lonely Parish (1886) • Saracinesca (1887) • Marzio's Crucifix (1887) • Paul Patoff (1887) • With the Immortals (1888) • Greifenstein (1889) • Sant' Ilario (1889); sequel to Saracinesca • A Cigarette-Maker's Romance (1890) • Khaled: A Tale of Arabia (1891) • The Witch of Prague (1891) • The Three Fates (1892) • Don Orsino (1892); sequel to Sant' Ilario • The Children of the King (1893) • Pietro Ghisleri (1893) • Marion Darche (1893) • Katharine Lauderdale (1894) (partly written while Crawford was staying at the Sinclair House) • Love in Idleness (1894) • The Ralstons (1894); sequel to Katharine Lauderdale • Casa Braccio (1895); related to Katharine Lauderdale and The Ralstons. • Adam Johnstone's Son (1896) • Taquisara (1896) • A Rose of Yesterday (1897) • Corleone (1897) • Via Crucis (1899) historical novel about the Second Crusade. • In the Palace of the King (1900) historical novel about Philip II of Spain. • Marietta (1901) historical novel set in Venice in 1470. • Cecilia (1902) • Man Overboard! (1903) [novella] • The Heart of Rome (1903) • Whosoever Shall Offend (1904) • Soprano (1905); U.S. title Fair Margaret. • A Lady of Rome (1906) • Arethusa (1907) • The Little City of Hope (1907) • The Primadonna (1908); sequel to Soprano / Fair Margaret • The Diva's Ruby (1908); sequel to The Primadonna • The White Sister (1909, first published as a serialized novel in Munsey's Magazine and adapted from his earlier play of the same name) • Stradella (1909) • The Undesirable Governess (1910)

• "The Upper Berth" (1885) • "By the Waters of Paradise" (1886) • "The Dead Smile" (1899) • "For the Blood Is the Life" (1905) • "The King's Messenger" (1907) • "The Screaming Skull" (1908) • "Wandering Ghosts"; British title: "Uncanny Tales" (1911) (collection of seven stories)

• Our Silver (1881) [pamphlet] • The Novel: What It Is (1893) • Constantinople (1895) • Bar Harbor (1896) • Ave Roma Immortalis (1898) • Rulers of the South (1900; 1905 in the U.S. as Southern Italy and Sicily and The Rulers of the South) • Gleanings from Venetian History (1905; in the U.S. as Salvae Venetia and in 1909 as Venice; the People and the Place)

• In the Palace of the King (1900); with Lorrimer Stoddard. • Francesca da Rimini (1902). Written at the request of Crawford's good friend Sarah Bernhardt. Translated by Marcel Schwob (Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1902); new edition traduction de l'américain en français par Marcel Schwob, Sulliver, 1996. The English text was not published until 1980, with introductory matter, by The F. Marion Crawford Memorial Society. Ten unpublished copies of the English text were set up and printed for The Macmillan Company (New York City) in 1902 to copyright the text. The piece was adapted into an opera by Franco Leoni in 1904. • Evelyn Hastings (1902). Unpublished typescript discovered in 2008. • The White Sister (first written by Crawford in 1907 prior to the novel which was adapted from the 1907 play; later modified by Walter Hackett for the stage premiere at the Stone Opera House in Binghamton, New York on February 8, 1909)

• A Cigarette-Maker's Romance, directed by Frank Wilson (UK, 1913, based on the novella A Cigarette-Maker's Romance) • The White Sister, directed by Fred E. Wright (1915, based on the play The White Sister by Crawford and Hackett) • In the Palace of the King (1915 film), directed by Fred E. Wright (1915, based on the novel In the Palace of the King) • Whosoever Shall Offend, directed by Arrigo Bocchi (UK, 1919, based on the novel Whosoever Shall Offend) • Il cuore di Roma, directed by Edoardo Bencivenga (Italy, 1919, based on the novel The Heart of Rome) • A Cigarette-Maker's Romance, directed by Tom Watts (UK, 1920, based on the novella A Cigarette-Maker's Romance) • Saracinesca (film), directed by Gaston Ravel (Italy, 1921, based on the novel Saracinesca) • Sant' Ilario, directed by Henry Kolker (Italy, 1923, based on the novel Sant' Ilario) • The White Sister, directed by Henry King (1923, based on the play The White Sister by Crawford and Hackett) • In the Palace of the King, directed by Emmett J. Flynn (1923, based on the novel In the Palace of the King) • Son of India, directed by Jacques Feyder (1931, based on the novel Mr. Isaacs) • The White Sister, directed by Victor Fleming (1933, based on the play The White Sister by Crawford and Hackett) • The Screaming Skull, directed by Alex Nicol (1958, named after the short story The Screaming Skull) • The White Sister, directed by Tito Davison (Mexico, 1960, based on the play The White Sister by Crawford and Hackett)