Crane, THOMAS FREDERICK

Crane, THOMAS FREDERICK, a learned folklorist, was born in New York city, July 12, 1844. He was educated at the public school and academy of Ithaca, New York; and graduated at the college of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1864; A.M. in 1867; and Ph.D., causa honoris, in 1874. He was appointed assistant-professor of Modern Languages in Cornell University in 1868, professor of Spanish and Italian there in 1872, and professor of Romance Languages in 1881. Professor Crane has contributed a large number of articles to the North American Review, International Review, Harper's Magazine, Lippincott's Magazine, and The Nation on folklore and the literary history and philology of the Romance languages, especially during the period of the middle ages. Since his article on Italian folk-tales in the North American Review for July 1876, he has devoted much attention to the subject of the origin and diffusion of popular tales, and was one of the founders of the American Folklore Society (1888). Among his books are Italian Popular Tales (Boston, 1885); Le Roman-tisme Français (New York, 1887); and an edition (1890), for the English Folklore Society, of the Exempla or illustrative stories contained in the sermones vulgares of Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre (died 1240), containing the Latin text, translation into English, elaborate notes on the origin and diffusion of the individual stories, and an introduction on the life of the author, and the use of illustrative stories in medieval sermons, &c. Professor Crane's Italian Popular Tales forms, from its extent, its scientific accuracy, and the wide learning of its notes, one of the most important of recent contributions to storiology.