The Resume

(March 8, 1813-January 20, 1892)
Born in Washington, District of Columbia
Birth name is Christopher Pearse Cranch
Author of 'The Last of the Huggermuggers, A Giant Story '(1855), 'Kobboltozo, A Sequel to the Last of the Huggermuggers,' 'The Aeneid of Virgil' (translation, 1872), 'Satan: A Libretto' (1874),'The Bird and the Bell with Other Poems' (1875), and 'Ariel and Caliban with Other Poems (1887)
Contributed to the Transcendentalist journals, 'The Dial,' 'The Harbinger,' and 'The Western Messenger'
Compiled his caricatures and sketches in a collection known as 'The New Philosophy Scrapbook'
Most famous for his sketch of Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous 'transparent eyeball' passage in 'Nature' (1836)

Why he might be annoying:

He was a vegetarian.
He had a career spanning fifty years, but he is exclusively remembered as the caricaturist who depicted Emerson as a long-legged eyeball in a hat, wandering aimlessly in the hills.
He abandoned his career as a traveling Unitarian minister to join the Transcendentalist movement.
He was unable to stick with one solid artistic medium and, as a result, is almost completely forgotten.
He took part in the ill-fated fiasco of an experiment in West Roxbury, the Utopian Brook Farm.
He tried to disown responsibility for a cartoon lampooning 'The Dial,' a publication he frequently worked with.
He authored an offensive, now-lost cartoon depicting Margaret Fuller as an Brunnehilde-style dominatrix.
He critiqued Emerson's poetry as lacking sensuality after Emerson expressed disappointment in Cranch's poetry not living up to his expectations.

Why he might not be annoying:

His cartoons lend retrospective understanding to the complexities within the Transcendentalist movement.
He was a renaissance man: a minister, teacher, editor, caricaturist, children's book author, poet, translator, musician, and landscape painter.
He was fluent in Greek, Latin, and German.
He was a protégé of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whom he idolized.
Emerson apparently found the 'transparent eyeball sketch' of his to be hilarious.
He defended Margaret Fuller, after her death, from unfair characterizations in Nathaniel Hawthorne's biography.
He was deemed to be one of the colorful and inventive personalities within the Transcendentalist circle, often leaving everyone in stitches with his biting wit.
He managed to eke out a good review from then-literary critic Edgar Allan Poe (who at the time seemed to hate most everything he came across).
Likewise, Emerson was disappointed in most all of his protégés, so it wasn't anything personal.
He became a full Academician of the National Academy of Design, in 1864, after getting elected in as an Associate 14 years earlier (1850).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair

Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

• 19th Century Poets
• Allegedly Gay Men
• Bad Hair - Male
• Bow Tie Wearers
• BoyWiththeGreenHair’s Profiles [Series 01]
• Cartoonists
• Children's Book Authors
• I am a New Englander
• I am a Unitarian
• I Attended George Washington University
• I Attended Harvard
• I Lived on Staten Island
• I Outlived My Child
• I was Estranged From My Parents
• Look at Me, I'm Wearing a Bow Tie
• Male Pipe Smokers
• Painters
• Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity
• Philosophers: 19th Century [1800-1900]
• Poets
• Pretty Boys
• Profiles 36001-36250 (Ranked: 36192)
• Silver Foxes [Gray and Don't Care]
• Smoking Vegetarians
• Teachers
• Wizard Beards

Year In Review:

In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
In 2021, Out of 11 Votes: 72.73% Annoying
In 2020, Out of 6 Votes: 16.67% Annoying
In 2019, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2018, Out of 8 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
In 2017, Out of 7 Votes: 57.14% Annoying
In 2016, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
In 2015, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
In 2014, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying