Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey and lived from 1871 to 1900. He was the 14th child of a Methodist minister. His mother published fiction and was very active in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. At the age of 8, Crane started to write stories and at the age of 16 he was writing articles for the New York Tribune. His mother and father did some writing and two of his brothers became newspapermen. Crane never cared much for schooling but he did attended Lafayette College and Syracuse University only for one semester. His mother died in 1890 and his father had died when Crane was 9 years old. After the death of his parents he moved to New York. In New York he was a free-lance writer and a journalist for the Bachellor-Johnson newspaper syndicate. He supported himself by his writing and he lived among the poor in the Bowery slums to research his very first novel, Maggie. Crane’s devotion to precision of details led him once to dress up as a tramp and spend the night in a flophouse. This generated the sketch ‘Experiment in Misery’ in 1894. His work motivated other writers, such as Hutchins Hapgood (1869-1944), to research the Lower East Side.
Crane’s war novel ‘The Red Badge of Courage” portrayed the American Civil War from the point of view of a common soldier. It has been called the first modern war novel. The text was so believable that England readers thought that the book was written by a veteran soldier. He rejected this belief by saying that he got his viewpoints from the football field. His collection of poems, ‘The Black Rider’, appeared in 1895 and they had much in common with Emily Dickinson’s simple, stripped style. Crane’s rising reputation brought him better reporting assignments. He pursued experiences as a war journalist in combat areas. He journeyed to Greece, Cuba, Texas, and Mexico, writing mostly on war events. His short story, ‘The Open Boat,’ is based on a true experience. In 1896, his ship, a coal-burning boat heavy with ammunition and knives, sank on the journey to Cuba. Crane spent several days floating in an open boat with a small party of other passengers before being rescued. This experience compromised his health permanently. His colleagues noted him as being an "original" in his field of work. He was well known as a poet, journalist, social critic and realist. He wrote 95 poems in his life time. In the last few years of his life, he began writing franticly because he was in debt and suffering from tuberculosis. He later died while he was in Germany.
"Stephen Crane Biography." Famous Poets and Poems - Read and Enjoy Poetry. ReadPrint. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. <http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/stephen_crane/biography>.
"Stephen Crane - Poems and Biography by AmericanPoems.com." American Poems - YOUR Poetry Site. Gunnar Bengtsson. Web. 13 Feb. 2011. <http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/stephencrane/>.
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