George Sterling (December 1, 1869 – November 17, 1926) was an American writer based in the San Francisco, California Bay Area and

Carmel-by-the-Sea Carmel-by-the-Sea (), often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated on October 31, 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its natural scenery and ri ...

. He was considered a prominent poet and playwright and proponent of

Bohemianism Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people and with few permanent ties. It involves musical, artistic, literary, or spiritual pursuits. In this context, bohemians may be wanderers, a ...

during the first quarter of the twentieth century. His work was admired by writers as diverse as

Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book ''The Devil's Dictionary'' was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by t ...

Robinson Jeffers John Robinson Jeffers (January 10, 1887 – January 20, 1962) was an American poet, known for his work about the central California coast. Much of Jeffers's poetry was written in narrative and epic form. However, he is also known for his short ...

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

Upton Sinclair Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968) was an American writer, muckraker, political activist and the 1934 Democratic Party nominee for governor of California who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in seve ...

Theodore Dreiser Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser (; August 27, 1871 – December 28, 1945) was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm mora ...

Sinclair Lewis Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...

, and

Clark Ashton Smith Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne. As a poet, Smit ...

Life and career

Sterling was born in

Sag Harbor, New York Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiner's Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2 ...

, the eldest of nine children. His father was Dr. George A. Sterling, a physician who determined to make a priest of one of his sons, and George was selected to attend, for three years, St. Charles College in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to it ...

. He was instructed in English by poet John B. Tabb. His mother Mary was a member of the Havens family, prominent in Sag Harbor and the Shelter Island area. Her brother,

Frank C. Havens Frank Colton Havens (November 21, 1848 – February 9, 1918) was a real estate and water developer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Biography Havens was born into one of the founding families of Shelter Island, New York, the son of Wickham Sayre ...

, Sterling's uncle, went to San Francisco in the late 19th century and established himself as a prominent lawyer and real estate developer. Sterling eventually followed him to the West in 1890 and worked as a real estate broker in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

. With the publication of his small volume of poetry in 1903, ''The Testimony of the Sun and Other Poems'', he quickly became a hero among the East Bay literati and artists, some of whom included

Joaquin Miller Cincinnatus Heine Miller (; September 8, 1837 – February 17, 1913), better known by his pen name Joaquin Miller (), was an American poet, author, and frontiersman. He is nicknamed the "Poet of the Sierras" after the Sierra Nevada, about which h ...

Xavier Martinez Xavier or Xabier may refer to: Place * Xavier, Spain People * Xavier (surname) * Xavier (given name) * Francis Xavier (1506–1552), Catholic saint ** St. Francis Xavier (disambiguation) * St. Xavier (disambiguation) * Xavier (footballer, bo ...

Harry Leon Wilson Harry Leon Wilson (May 1, 1867 – June 28, 1939) was an American novelist and dramatist best known for his novels ''Ruggles of Red Gap'' and '' Merton of the Movies''. Another of his works, ''Bunker Bean'', helped popularize the term "flapper". ...

, Perry H. Newberry, Henry Lafler,

Gelett Burgess Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951) was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclast ...

, and James Hopper. Portrait photograph of George Sterling

In 1905 Sterling moved 120 miles south to

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Carmel-by-the-Sea (), often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated on October 31, 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its natural scenery and ric ...

, an undeveloped coastal paradise, and soon established a settlement for like-minded Bohemian writers and other children of the counterculture. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (). His aunt, Mrs. Havens, purchased a home for him in

Carmel Woods Carmel Woods is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. It is located adjoining the northern city limits of Carmel-by-the-Sea and adjacent to Pebble Beach. Carmel Woodsat Geonames.org (cc-by)post updated 2006 ...

where he lived for six years. Artist

Charles Rollo Peters Charles Rollo Peters (April 10, 1862 – March 2, 1928) was an American oil painter of nocturnes. Early life Peters was born on April 10, 1862, in San Francisco, California. He studied at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in Pa ...

and Robinson Jeffers were influential in Sterling's move to Carmel. A parallel colony of painters was also developing in this enclave. Carmel had been discovered by

Charles Warren Stoddard Charles Warren Stoddard (August 7, 1843 April 23, 1909) was an American author and editor best known for his travel books about Polynesian life. Biography Charles Warren Stoddard was born in Rochester, New York on August 7, 1843. He was desce ...

and others, but Sterling made it world-famous. In addition to the Bay Area residents mentioned above, Sterling managed to attract, as either visitors or semi-permanent residents, the satirical iconoclast

, novelist Mary Austin, art photographer

Arnold Genthe Arnold Genthe (8 January 1869 – 9 August 1942) was a German-American photographer, best known for his photographs of San Francisco's Chinatown, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and his portraits of noted people, from politicians and socialite ...

, and writer

. When a firestorm of controversy followed Sterling's publication of ''A Wine of Wizardry'' in the ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine of September 1907, other rebels flocked to Carmel, including

and the MacGowan sisters. The death by poison of the young poet

Nora May French Nora May French (1881 – November 13, 1907) was an American poet and member of the bohemian literary circles of the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club which flourished after the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906. Biography French was b ...

in Sterling's home drew national press coverage. The suicide of Sterling's wife by cyanide only added fuel to the flames.. Sterling's own diaries and correspondence reveal a more sedate, but still Bohemian community. He often volunteered at Carmel's Forest Theatre and once played a starring role in Mary Austin's play ''The Fire''. He is depicted twice in Jack London's novels: as Russ Brissenden in the autobiographical ''

Martin Eden ''Martin Eden'' is a 1909 novel by American author Jack London about a young proletarian autodidact struggling to become a writer. It was first serialized in ''The Pacific Monthly'' magazine from September 1908 to September 1909 and then publishe ...

'' (1909) and as Mark Hall in '' The Valley of the Moon'' (1913).

Kevin Starr Kevin Owen Starr (September 3, 1940 – January 14, 2017) was an American historian and California's state librarian, best known for his multi-volume series on the history of California, collectively called "Americans and the California Dream." ...

(1973) wrote:

The uncrowned King of Bohemia (so his friends called him), Sterling had been at the center of every artistic circle in the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gover ...
. Celebrated as the embodiment of the local artistic scene, though forgotten today, Sterling had in his lifetime been linked with the immortals, his name carved on the walls of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition next to the great poets of the past.

Joseph Noel (1940) says that Sterling's poem, ''A Wine of Wizardry,'' has "been classed by many authorities as the greatest poem ever written by an American author." According to Noel, Sterling sent the final draft of ''A Wine of Wizardry'' to the normally acerbic and critical

. Bierce said "If I could find a flaw in it, I should quickly call your attention to it... It takes the breath away." Sterling joined the

Bohemian Club The Bohemian Club is a private club with two locations: a city clubhouse in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco, California and the Bohemian Grove, a retreat north of the city in Sonoma County. Founded in 1872 from a regular meeting of journa ...

and acted in their theatrical productions each summer at the

Bohemian Grove Bohemian Grove is a restricted 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) campground at 20601 Bohemian Avenue, in Monte Rio, California, United States, belonging to a private San Francisco–based gentlemen's club known as the Bohemian Club. In mid-July each year, ...

.Mencken, Henry Louis; Sterling, George; Joshi, S. T
''From Baltimore to Bohemia: the letters of H. L. Mencken and George Sterling''
Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2001, p. 252. For the main Grove play in 1907, the club presented ''The Triumph of Bohemia'', Sterling's verse drama depicting the battle between the "Spirit of Bohemia" and

Mammon Mammon in the New Testament of the Bible is commonly thought to mean money, material wealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus u ...

for the souls of the grove's woodmen. Sterling also supplied lyric for the musical numbers at the 1918 Grove play. Bierce, who acclaimed Sterling's poem ''The Testimony of the Suns'', in his "Prattle" column in

William Randolph Hearst William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboyan ...

's ''

San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corpora ...

'', arranged for the publication of ''A Wine of Wizardry'' in the September 1907 number of ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

'', which afforded Sterling some national notice. In an introduction to the poem, Bierce wrote "Whatever length of days may be according to this magazine, it is not likely to do anything more notable in literature than it accomplished in this issue by the publication of Mr. George Sterling's poem, 'A Wine of Wizardry.'" Bierce wrote to Sterling, "I hardly know how to speak of it. No poem in English of equal length has so bewildering a wealth of imagination. Not Spencer himself has flung such a profusion of jewels into so small a casket". Sterling fell into drinking and his wife departed. Noel, a personal acquaintance, says that when he began the poem, Sterling "was persuaded that there was another world than that we know. He repeated this to me so frequently that it became a trifle tiresome. Of the means he employed to get a glimpse of that other world, I am not so sure." He observes that "many before Sterling had used narcotics to this end;" that "George, a doctor's son, had always had access to whatever drugs he fancied;" says that Sterling's wife said "that George had purloined a great quantity of

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy '' Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, whic ...

from his brother Wickham," and speaks of "internal evidence in the poem" in which "Sterling writes his Fancy awakened with a 'brow caressed by poppybloom.'" Despite all this, Noel makes a point of saying "there is no direct evidence that Sterling used narcotics." Sterling also wrote for children ''The Saga of the Pony Express''. Despite such famous mentors as Bierce and

Ina Coolbrith Ina Donna Coolbrith (born Josephine Donna Smith; March 10, 1841 – February 29, 1928) was an American poet, writer, librarian, and a prominent figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary community. Called the "Sweet Singer of California", s ...

, and his long association with London, Sterling himself never became well known outside California. Sterling's poetry is both visionary and mystical, but he also wrote ribald quatrains that were often unprintable and left unpublished. His style reflects the Romantic charm of such poets as Shelley,

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

and Poe, and he provided guidance and encouragement to the similarly inclined Clark Ashton Smith at the beginning of Smith's own career. Sterling carried a vial of

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of a ...

for many years. When asked about it he said, "A prison becomes a home if you have the key". Finally in November 1926, Sterling used it at his residence at the San Francisco

after not receiving an expected visit from

H. L. Mencken Henry Louis Mencken (September 12, 1880 – January 29, 1956) was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, ...

. Kevin Starr wrote that "When George Sterling's corpse was discovered in his room at the Bohemian Club... the golden age of San Francisco's bohemia had definitely come to a miserable end." Sterling's most famous line was delivered to the city of San Francisco, "the cool, grey city of love!".

Memorials

* Sterling Avenue in Berkeley is named for George Sterling. * It is thought that Sterling Avenue in Alameda is named for George Sterling. * A stone bench was dedicated to Sterling on June 25, 1926, at the crest of

Hyde Street Hyde Street is an iconic street in San Francisco, California. Hyde Street connects the Aquatic Park Historic District Aquatic Park Historic District is a National Historic Landmark and building complex on the San Francisco Bay waterfront within ...

Russian Hill Russian Hill is a neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It is named after one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills". Location Russian Hill is directly to the north (and slightly downhill) from Nob Hill, to the ...

. In 1982, the park the bench was originally located in was named "George Sterling Park".

Writings

Poetry

* ''The Testimony of the Suns and Other Poems'' (San Francisco: W. E. Wood, 1903; San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1904, 1907; St. Clair Shores, Michigan: Scholarly Press, 1970) * ''A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1909). * ''The House of Orchids and Other Poems'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1911). * ''Beyond the Breakers and Other Poems'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1914). * ''Ode on the Opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1915). * ''The Evanescent City'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1915). * ''The Caged Eagle and Other Poems'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1916). * ''Yosemite: An Ode'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1916). * ''The Binding of the Beast and Other War Verse'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1917). * ''Thirty-Five Sonnets'' (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1917). * ''To a Girl Dancing'' (San Francisco: Grabhorn, 1921). * ''Sails and Mirage and Other Poems'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1921). * ''Selected Poems'' (New York: Henry Holt, 1923; San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1923). * ''Strange Waters'' (San Francisco: Paul Elder 1926). * ''The Testimony of the Suns, Including Comments, Suggestions, and Annotations by Ambrose Bierce: A Facsmile of the Original Typewritten Manuscript'' (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1927). * ''Sonnets to Craig,''

, ed. (Long Beach, Calif.: Upton Sinclair, 1928; New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1928). * ''Five Poems'' (

an Francisco An, AN, aN, or an may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Airlinair (IATA airline code AN) * Alleanza Nazionale, a former political party in Italy * AnimeNEXT, an annual anime convention located in New Jersey * Anime North, a Canadian a ...

Windsor Press, 1928). * ''Poems to Vera'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1938). * ''After Sunset'',

R. H. Barlow Robert Hayward Barlow (May 18, 1918 – January 1 or 2, 1951Joshi & Schultz (2007): p. xx.) was an American author, avant-garde poet, anthropologist and historian of early Mexico, and expert in the Nahuatl language. He was a correspondent an ...

, ed. (San Francisco: John Howell, 1939). * ''A Wine of Wizardry and Three Other Poems,'' Dale L. Walker, ed. (Fort Johnson: "a private press," 1964). * ''George Sterling: A Centenary Memoir-Anthology,'' Charles Angoff, ed. (South Brunswick and New York: Poetry Society of America, 1969). * ''The Thirst of Satan: Poems of Fantasy and Terror,'' S. T. Joshi, ed. (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2003). * ''Complete Poetry,'' S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, eds. (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2013).

Plays

* ''The Triumph of Bohemia: A Forest Play'' (San Francisco:

, 1907). * with Henry Anderson Lafler: ''A Masque of the Cities'' (

akland Akland is a village in Risør municipality in Agder county, Norway. The village is located at the southwestern end of the Søndeledfjorden. The village sits at the junction of the European route E18 highway, the Norwegian County Road 416, and the ...

akland Commercial Club 1913). * with

Hugo von Hofmannsthal Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (; 1 February 1874 – 15 July 1929) was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist. Early life Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-class ...

: ''The Play of Everyman'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1917; Los Angeles: Primavera Press, 1939). * ''Lilith: A Dramatic Poem'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1919; San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1920; New York: Macmillan, 1926). * ''Rosamund: A Dramatic Poem'' (San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1920). * ''Truth'' (Chicago: Bookfellows, 1923; San Francisco:

, 1926).

Songs

* with music by Lawrence Zenda (Rosaliene Travis, pseud.): ''Songs'' (San Francisco: Sherman, Clay, 1916, 1918, 1928). * with music by Lawrence Zenda (Rosaliene Travis, pseud.): "You Are So Beautiful" (San Francisco: Sherman, Clay, 1917). * "We're A-Going" (San Francisco: Sherman, Clay, 1918). * with music by John H. Densmore: "Love Song" (New York: G. Schirmer, 1926). * with additional verses contributed by

, and undetermined others: ''The Abalone Song'' (San Francisco: Albert M. Bender rabhorn Press 1937; San Francisco: Windsor Press, 1943; Los Angeles: Tuscan Press, 1998).

Nonfiction

* ''Robinson Jeffers: The Man and the Artist'' (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926).

Fiction

* ''Babes in the Wood'' (San Francisco: Vince Emery, 2020).

Letters

* ''Give a Man a Boat He Can Sail: Letters of George Sterling,'' James Henry, Ed. (Detroit: Harlo, 1980). * ''From Baltimore to Bohemia: The Letters of H. L. Mencken and George Sterling,'' ed. S. T. Joshi (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University, 2001). * ''Dear Master: Letters of George Sterling to Ambrose Bierce, 1900–1912,'' Roger K. Larson, ed. (San Francisco: Book Club of California; 2002). * ''The Shadow of the Unattained: The Letters of George Sterling and Clark Ashton Smith,'' David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi, eds. (New York: Hippocampus Press, 2005).

Volumes edited by Sterling

* with Bertha Clark Pope: ''The Letters of

'' (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1922). : Although uncredited, Sterling was co-editor of this volume and wrote "A Memoir of Ambrose Bierce" for it. * with Genevieve Taggard and James Rorty, ''Continent's End: An Anthology of Contemporary California Poets'' (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1925).

References

;Notes ;Bibliography * Benediktsson, Thomas E. (1980). ''George Sterling''. Boston: Twayne Publishers. . * Cusatis, John (2006). "George Sterling." ''Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Poets and poetry,'' Volume 5, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishers, 1530–1531. * Cusatis, John (2010
"Kindred Poets of Carmel: The Philosophical and Aesthetic Affinities of George Sterling and Robinson Jeffers"
Jeffers Studies, Volume 13, Number 1 & 2, 1–11. * Joshi, S. T. (2008). "George Sterling: Prophet of the Suns," chapter 1 in ''Emperors of Dreams: Some Notes on Weird Poetry''. Sydney: P'rea Press. (pbk) and (hbk). * Noel, Joseph (1940). ''Footloose in Arcadia''. New York: Carrick and Evans. * Parry, Albert (1933, first edition)
"Lovely Chaos in Carmel and Taos"
chapter 20 within ''Garretts & Pretenders: A History of Bohemianism in America'', republished in 1960 and 2005, Cosimo, Inc. * Starr, Kevin (1973). ''Americans and the California Dream 1850–1915''. Oxford University Press. 1986 reprint:

External links

George-Sterling.org
Collected works, image gallery, bibliography and critical articles.
A George Sterling Page
A brief biography of Sterling.
George Sterling, Poet
A page by the poet's grand niece.
George Sterling (1869–1926)
A collection of Sterling's poems; notes on memorial glade in San Francisco.

by

*5 shor
radio episodes
from Sterling's poems at

California Legacy Project California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

.
Guide to the Collection of George Sterling Papers
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

Finding aid to George Sterling papers, 1916-1943, at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.Finding Aid to the Albert M. Bender collection of George Sterling papers circa 1880-1998
at

San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as ''Library Journals Li ...

. * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sterling, George 1869 births 1926 suicides 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American poets American male dramatists and playwrights American male poets History of the San Francisco Bay Area People from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California People from Sag Harbor, New York Poets from California Poets from New York (state) Suicides by cyanide poisoning Suicides in California Writers from San Francisco