⁵ See Christopher Benfey, The Double Life of Stephen Crane (London, 1993), 51–4, and Crane Correspondence, ii. 559–60. Ford believed that ‘Mrs Crane’ was largely responsible for the ‘fantasies’ which led the couple to rent such an overblown, impractical pile as Brede Place (which severely worsened Crane’s tuberculosis). Ford reached this conclusion having been presented with the spectacle of Cora wearing ‘hanging sleeves, hennins and pointed shoes’ at the behest of a Mrs Pease, who ‘wanted to see the countryside covered with ladies in medieval attire’ (Memories and Impresstons, 177). There is, however, no reason to suppose that Crane was any less affected by these illusions than his partner.