StephenCrane
was born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 1, 1871, as the 14th child
of a 
Methodist
minister. He started to write stories at the age of
eight. In 1885 Crane wrote his first story titled Uncle Jake and
the Bell Handle, although it was not published during his
lifetime. Crane enrolled at Pennington Seminary in Pennington, New
Jersey. Stephen's father, Jonathan Crane, was a Methodist minister who
died in 1880, leaving Stephen, the youngest of 14
children, to be reared by his devout, strong minded mother. After attending preparatory school at the Claverack College (1888-90), Crane spent less than two years at college and then went to New York City to live in a medical students' boardinghouse while freelancing his way to a literary career.
Methodist
minister. He started to write stories at the age of
eight. In 1885 Crane wrote his first story titled Uncle Jake and
the Bell Handle, although it was not published during his
lifetime. Crane enrolled at Pennington Seminary in Pennington, New
Jersey. Stephen's father, Jonathan Crane, was a Methodist minister who
died in 1880, leaving Stephen, the youngest of 14children, to be reared by his devout, strong minded mother. After attending preparatory school at the Claverack College (1888-90), Crane spent less than two years at college and then went to New York City to live in a medical students' boardinghouse while freelancing his way to a literary career.
Crane
wrote his first story titled Uncle
Jake and the Bell Handle, although it was not published during
his lifetime. Crane
wrote his second book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), a
sympathetic study of an innocent and abused slum girl's descent into
prostitution and her eventual suicide.
At that time so
shocking that Crane published it under a pseudonym and at his own
expense, Maggie left him to struggle as a poor
and unknown freelance journalist, Until
he was befriended by Hamlin
Garland and the influential critic William Dean Howells. Suddenly in
1895 the publication of The Red Badge of Courage and of his
first book of poems, The Black Riders, brought him
international fame. Strikingly different in tone and technique from Maggie,
The Red
Badge of Courage is a subtle impressionistic
study of a young soldier trying to find reality amid the conflict of
fierce warfare. The book's hero, Henry Fleming, survives his own fear,
cowardice, and vainglory and goes on to discover courage, humility, and
perhaps wisdom in the confused combat of an unnamed Civil War battle.
Crane, who had as yet seen no war, was widely praised by veterans for
his uncanny power to imagine and reproduce the sense of actual combat.
Crane's collection of poems, The
Black Rider, also appeared in
1895 These books brought Crane better reporting assignments and he
sought experiences as a war correspondent in combat areas. Crane
traveled to Greece, Cuba, Texas and Mexico, reporting mostly on war
events. His short story, "The Open Boat," is based on a true
experience, when his ship sank on the journey to Cuba in
1896. With a small party of other passengers, Crane spent several days
drifting in an open boat before being rescued. This experience impaired
his health permanently. In 1898 Crane settled in Sussex, England, where
he became friends with Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Henry James.
During these restless years Crane refined his use of realism to expose
social ills, as in George's
Mother (1896), which explored life
in the Bowery. In 1899 appeared Active Service, which was
based
on the Greco-Turkish War.
In 1899 Crane returned to Cuba, to cover the Spanish-American
War. He had many adventures in Cuba, including surviving the sinking of
his ship, witnessing first-hand several battles, and the 
reaction
in Havana after the conflict ended. His accounts and opinions are
drastically different from Twain's. Crane's
posthumous publications include the sketches and stories
from his life as a correspondent in Wounds In The Rain (1900) and
Whilomville Stories
(1900), depicting a childhood in a small
state. Crane's works introduced into American literature realism,
although his innovations in technique and style and use of symbolism
gave much of his best work a romantic rather than a naturalistic
quality. Due to poor health he was obliged to return to
England. Crane died on June 5, 1900 at Badenweiler in Germany of
tuberculosis at age twenty-eight, which was
worsened by malarial fever he had caught in Cuba. He was
Buried at Hillside, New Jersey. Crane's Whilomville Stories and
Cuban war stories titled Wounds
in the Rain appeared after his
death
Related works of
interest
The bride comes to Yellow Sky
The Blue Hotel
The Fight
An Experiment in Misery
A Parody of Edgar Allan Poe: A Tale of Mere Chance
The Prince of The Harness
Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure
The Clan of No-Name
The Second Generation
A Parody of Horatio Alger: A Self Made Man
When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first
wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates
deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible
expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.
Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot at he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: 'Yes, but I love myself.'
(from 'The Open Boat')
"If I am going to be drowned
If I am going to be drowned
Then why in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea
Was I allowed to come this far and contemplate sand and trees."
(from 'The Open Boat' )
"He was being looked at by a dead man . . . . The corpse was dressed in a uniform that once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green . . . . The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of bundle over the upper lip."
(from 'The Red Badge of Courage' )
Links:
Stephen's First Link
Stephen's Second Link
Stephen's Third Link
Stephen's Fourth Link
Stephen's Fifth Link
Works Cited:
Major portions of the above text were directly copied from public domain documents found on the internet. I have listed those Internet Addresses beneath for your convenience.
Badge of Courage is a subtle impressionistic
study of a young soldier trying to find reality amid the conflict of
fierce warfare. The book's hero, Henry Fleming, survives his own fear,
cowardice, and vainglory and goes on to discover courage, humility, and
perhaps wisdom in the confused combat of an unnamed Civil War battle.
Crane, who had as yet seen no war, was widely praised by veterans for
his uncanny power to imagine and reproduce the sense of actual combat.
Crane's collection of poems, The
Black Rider, also appeared in
1895 These books brought Crane better reporting assignments and he
sought experiences as a war correspondent in combat areas. Crane
traveled to Greece, Cuba, Texas and Mexico, reporting mostly on war
events. His short story, "The Open Boat," is based on a true
experience, when his ship sank on the journey to Cuba in
1896. With a small party of other passengers, Crane spent several days
drifting in an open boat before being rescued. This experience impaired
his health permanently. In 1898 Crane settled in Sussex, England, where
he became friends with Joseph Conrad, H.G. Wells, and Henry James.
During these restless years Crane refined his use of realism to expose
social ills, as in George's
Mother (1896), which explored life
in the Bowery. In 1899 appeared Active Service, which was
based
on the Greco-Turkish War.
reaction
in Havana after the conflict ended. His accounts and opinions are
drastically different from Twain's. Crane's
posthumous publications include the sketches and stories
from his life as a correspondent in Wounds In The Rain (1900) and
Whilomville Stories
(1900), depicting a childhood in a small
state. Crane's works introduced into American literature realism,
although his innovations in technique and style and use of symbolism
gave much of his best work a romantic rather than a naturalistic
quality. Due to poor health he was obliged to return to
England. Crane died on June 5, 1900 at Badenweiler in Germany of
tuberculosis at age twenty-eight, which was
worsened by malarial fever he had caught in Cuba. He was
Buried at Hillside, New Jersey. Crane's Whilomville Stories and
Cuban war stories titled Wounds
in the Rain appeared after his
deathStephen Crane's articles in the New York World and the New York Journal during the war.
Crane, Stephen. "Stephen Crane's Own Story" The New York Press, January 7, 1897.
Crane, Stephen. "The Open Boat". The Open Boat and other Stories.
Crane, Stephen. "The Woof of the Thin Red Thread." Cosmopolitan, December 1898.
Crane, Stephen. "War Memories" The Anglo-Saxon Review, December 1899.
Crane, Stephen. "The Upturned Face" Ainslee's Magazine, March 1900.
Azoy, A.C.M. Charge! New York: Longmans, Green, 1961. LCCN: 61-11303.
Lynch, George and Frederick Palmer (eds). In Many Wars by Many War Correspondents. "How Stephen Crane took Juana Dias" by Richard Harding Davis. Lynch Tokyo, 1904. LCCN: 77-362852.
Manchester, William. "The Spanish-American War." Holiday, September 30, 1961.
Marshall, Davis Edward. "Stories of Stephen Crane." Literary Life, 1900.
Marshall, Davis Edward. The story of the Rough Riders, 1st U.S. volunteer cavalry; the regiment in camp and on the battle field. New York: G.W. Dillingham Co., 1899. LCCN: 99-961.
Paine, Ralph. Roads of Adventure. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922. LCCN: 22-23739.
Werthem, Stanley, and Paul Sorrentino (eds). The Correspondence of Stephen Crane. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. LCCN: 87-25628.
The bride comes to Yellow Sky
The Blue Hotel
The Fight
An Experiment in Misery
A Parody of Edgar Allan Poe: A Tale of Mere Chance
The Prince of The Harness
Flanagan and His Short Filibustering Adventure
The Clan of No-Name
The Second Generation
A Parody of Horatio Alger: A Self Made Man
When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first
wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates
deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples. Any visible
expression of nature would surely be pelleted with his jeers.Then, if there be no tangible thing to hoot at he feels, perhaps, the desire to confront a personification and indulge in pleas, bowed to one knee, and with hands supplicant, saying: 'Yes, but I love myself.'
(from 'The Open Boat')
"If I am going to be drowned
If I am going to be drowned
Then why in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea
Was I allowed to come this far and contemplate sand and trees."
(from 'The Open Boat' )
"In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels." (from 'Maggie' ).
"He was being looked at by a dead man . . . . The corpse was dressed in a uniform that once had been blue, but was now faded to a melancholy shade of green . . . . The mouth was open. Its red had changed to an appalling yellow. Over the gray skin of the face ran little ants. One was trundling some sort of bundle over the upper lip."
(from 'The Red Badge of Courage' )
Links:
Stephen's First Link
Stephen's Second Link
Stephen's Third Link
Stephen's Fourth Link
Stephen's Fifth Link
Works Cited:
Major portions of the above text were directly copied from public domain documents found on the internet. I have listed those Internet Addresses beneath for your convenience.