The Western Shore

Clarkson Crane (1894-1971) was a novelist and English professor. Born in Chicago, he was raised in a prominent family on the city's Near North Side. In 1910, he moved with his parents to California, where he would attend the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1916. During the First World War, he served as an ambulance driver in France and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery. He returned to the United States in 1919 and was honorably discharged from the Army before embarking on a career as a writer, publishing stories in The Smart Set and The Dial. In 1925, while in Paris, he published The Western Shore, his most acclaimed novel. The following year, he became a lecturer in English at the University of California Extension School. Soon, Crane would meet Clyde Evans, with whom he would develop a lifelong relationship. Recognized as a pioneering LGBTQ author, Crane was a fixture of the San Francisco literary scene in the early twentieth century.