Editing Harry Crosby (section)

==The Fire Princess==
On July 9, 1928, Crosby met 20-year-old Josephine Noyes Rotch, the daughter of Arthur and Helen Ludington Rotch of Boston. Ten years his junior, Josephine was shopping in Venice at the [[Lido di Venezia|Lido]] for her wedding dress. She had belonged to the Vincent Club and the [[Junior League]] and graduated from Lee School before she had attended Bryn Mawr College. After only two years at Bryn Mawr, she left because she planned to marry [[Albert Bigelow]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stringandacan.com/Black_Sun/Josie_Bio.html |title=Jose Bio |publisher=The Black Sun Players|access-date=November 3, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110716155316/http://www.stringandacan.com/Black_Sun/Josie_Bio.html |archive-date=July 16, 2011 }}</ref> "She was dark and intense...since the season of her coming out in 1926-1927, she had been known around Boston as fast, a 'bad egg'...with a good deal of sex appeal."<ref name=Slosberg>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=pPcgAAAAIBAJ&pg=1233,955221&dq=caresse+crosby&hl=en|title=Sex, society and suicide make for great scandal|date=May 2, 2002|publisher=The Day |access-date=19 March 2010|last=Slosberg|first=Steven}}</ref>{{rp|C1}}

They met for sex as often as her eight days in Venice would allow. He later called her the "Youngest Princess of the Sun" and the "Fire Princess". She was also from a prominent Boston family which first settled in Provincetown, Massachusetts in 1690. Josephine inspired Crosby's next collection of poems, which he dedicated to her, titled ''Transit of Venus.'' In a letter dated July 24, 1928, Crosby detailed the affair to his mother, in whom he had always confided:

{{blockquote|I am having an affair with a girl I met (not introduced) at the Lido. She is twenty and has charm and is called Josephine. I like girls when they are very young before they have any minds.<ref name="cosmic"/><ref name="Conover"/>}}

Josephine and Crosby had an ongoing affair until June 21, 1929, when she married Albert Smith Bigelow. Their affair was over—until August, when Josephine contacted Crosby and they rekindled the affair as her husband became a first- year graduate student of architecture at Harvard. Unlike his wife Caresse, Josephine was quarrelsome and prone to fits of jealousy.<ref name=wolff/>{{rp|6}} She bombarded Crosby with half-incoherent cables and letters, anxious to set the date for their next tryst.<ref name="hamalian"/>

===Visit to United States===
[[File:Book-Cadillac Hotel (NBY 23518).jpg|thumb|The Book Cadillac Hotel in the 1920s.]]
[[File:Mauretania 1930s.JPG|thumb|RMS ''Mauretania'' during the 1930s]]
On November 20, 1929,<ref>[https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-21842-1645-19?cc=1923888&wc=M94K-2D9:1301085291 New York, New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1909, 1925-1957], FamilySearch. Accessed 24 Feb 2014, 4632 - vol 10108-10109, Nov 20, 1929. Image 265 of 1108.</ref> the Crosbys returned to the United States aboard the [[RMS Mauretania (1906)|RMS ''Mauretania'']] for a visit and the [[Harvard–Yale football rivalry|Harvard-Yale football game]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1499&dat=19530426&id=fD4aAAAAIBAJ&pg=6871,5795007|title=The Milwaukee Journal |date= April 26, 1953|access-date=16 March 2010| publisher=Special Collections Research Center, Morris Library, Southern Illinois University Carbondale}}</ref> Crosby and Josephine met and traveled to Detroit, where they checked into the expensive ($12 a day— or ${{formatnum:{{inflation|US|12|1929}}}} modern value) [[Westin Book Cadillac Hotel|Book-Cadillac Hotel]] as Mr. and Mrs Harry Crane.<ref name=Slosberg/> For four days, they took meals in their room, smoked opium, and had sex.<ref name="Conover"/>

On December 7, 1929, the lovers returned to New York, where Josephine said she was going to return to Boston and her husband. Crosby's friend [[Hart Crane]] threw a party that evening to celebrate his completion after seven years of his poem, ''[[The Bridge (long poem)|The Bridge]]''. The Black Sun Press was scheduled to publish it the next week, and he wanted to bid Crosby and Caresse ''bon voyage'', since they were due to sail back to France the next week. Among the guests present were Margaret Robson, [[Malcolm Cowley]], [[Walker Evans]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.todayinliterature.com/biography/hart.crane.asp|title=Hart Crane – Life Stories, Books, and Links|publisher=Today in Literature|access-date=19 March 2010|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100325093152/http://www.todayinliterature.com/biography/hart.crane.asp|archive-date=25 March 2010}}</ref> [[E. E. Cummings]], and [[William Carlos Williams]].<ref name=fisher/> The party went on until nearly dawn.<ref name=blackcat/> Crosby and Caresse made plans to see Crane again before they left for Europe on December 10 to attend the popular Broadway play ''[[Berkeley Square (play)|Berkeley Square]]''.

On December 9, Josephine, who instead of returning to Boston, had stayed with one of her bridesmaids in New York,<ref name=Slosberg/> sent a 36-line poem to Harry Crosby, who was staying with Caresse at the Savoy-Plaza Hotel. The last line of the poem read "Death is our marriage".<ref name="cosmic"/>

On the same day, Harry Crosby wrote his final entry in his journal: "One is not in love unless one desires to die with one's beloved. There is only one happiness it is to love and to be loved."<ref name="cosmic"/>