George Sterling

George Sterling was born in Sag Harbor, New York, and after studying poetry and considering the priesthood in seminary, he moved to California to work in real estate. He was the author of many poetry collections, including The Testimony of the Suns, and Other Poems (1903), A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems (1909), Beyond the Breakers and Other Poems (1914), and Selected Poems (1923). He was a member of the elite Bohemian Club and wrote two of its plays: The Triumph of Bohemia (1907) and Truth (1923). He counted the writer Jack London as a close friend, and Ambrose Bierce and Ina Coolbrith as mentors. After being a prominent figure in the Bohemian literary scene in San Francisco, he helped to start an artist colony in Carmel-by the Sea, California. He committed suicide by cyanide in 1926.