Crane, Stephen

Crane, Stephen (1871–1900), born in New Jersey, spent most of his youth in upstate New York; he attended Lafayette College and Syracuse University, each for a year, before moving to New York City to become a struggling author and do intermittent reporting for the Herald and Tribune. His first book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), was too grim to find a regular publisher, and remained unsold even when Crane borrowed from his brother to issue it privately. Early in 1893, with no personal experience of war, deriving his knowledge primarily from reading Tolstoy and Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, he wrote The Red Badge of Courage (1895), his great realistic study of the mind of an inexperienced soldier trapped in the fury and turmoil of battle.

The success of this book led to the reissue of Maggie, and Crane's reputation was established. In quick succession appeared his book of free verse, influenced by Emily Dickinson, The Black Riders (1895); The Little Regiment (1896), naturalistic Civil War Stories, issued in England as Pictures of War; George's Mother (1896), the story of the dull lives of a young workingman and his mother in New York; and The Third Violet (1897), a conventional novelette about the romance of a young artist.

Because of his successful treatment of war in his masterpiece, Crane was thrust for most of his remaining life into the field of war reporting. After a period as a correspondent in the Southwest and in Mexico, he was sent with a filibustering expedition to Cuba at the end of 1896. The sinking of the ship and his subsequent 50‐hour struggle with the waves furnished the theme of his best‐known short story, The Open Boat. Inexperience and illness made his trip to Greece, to report the Turkish war, almost futile. Following a short residence in England, he went to Cuba to report the Spanish‐American War, and his journalistic sketches and stories of this period are collected in Wounds in the Rain (1900). His observation of the Greco‐Turkish War resulted in Active Service (1899), a satirical novel about a war correspondent.

Upon his return to New York, Crane's health was already broken by the hardships he had endured, and, possibly owing to his early treatment of squalor in Maggie and rumors about the immorality of his common‐law wife, a myth now arose to the effect that he was a drunk, a drug addict, and generally depraved. Disgusted by unpleasant notoriety, he returned to England, having meanwhile published two collections of short stories, The Open Boat (1898) and The Monster (1899), and a second volume of free verse, War is Kind (1899). Whilomville Stories (1900) is a collection of tales concerned with typical childhood incidents in a small New York town. Crane's last work shows a decrease in power, for he was broken in health and soon died of tuberculosis in Germany, where he had gone to seek a cure. Posthumously published volumes include Great Battles of the World (1901), an uninspired historical study; Last Words (1902), a collection of his early tales and sketches; The O'Ruddy (1903), an unfinished romance, completed by Robert Barr; and Men, Women, and Boats (1921), a selection, including several stories never before published. His Letters were collected in 1960, and the University of Virginia issued a scholarly edition of his works (10 vols., 1969–75).