Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was an American author. His works include Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), The Red Badge of Courage (1895), The Black Riders (1895), The Open Boat (1898), and "The Monster" (1899).

Life and Works

He was born on November 1, 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, to a Methodist minister and a writer, though he was raised by his older sister Agnes. He studied at Claverack College, Lafayette College, and Easton University and got a job with the New York Times. He published his first book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets under the pseudonym Johnson Smith, to avoid backlash in its depictions of promiscuity and other unnecessary controversy. Crane's best-known novel, The Red Badge of Courage, he wrote as an impressionistic novel of a Civil War soldier called Henry Fleming who desires a battle would to mask his pusillanimity in fleeing from a battle. He later published his poetry in The Black Rider and his short stories in The Monster and Other Stories, including the frequently anthologized "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", and "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky".

After it made him famous, he continued as a reporter of the Spanish-American War and the Greco-Turkish War. He married a Cora Taylor and became financially ruined in England. He died of tuberculosis at age 29.

Other

Stephen Crane appears on the cover of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

See also

• H. G. Wells
• Joseph Conrad

External links

• Biography and Poems at the Poetry Foundation website