Stephen Crane

Biography

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was born after the Civil War and never served in any military. He was the son of a Methodist minister, dropped out of college, and lived in New York City's worst neighborhoods while trying to write fiction. He published The Red Badge of Courage at 24, based entirely on research, imagination, and conversations with veterans — not experience. The novel was widely praised by actual veterans as the most accurate depiction of combat they had read. Crane later covered real wars (the Greco-Turkish War, the Spanish-American War) as a correspondent, found they confirmed everything he had imagined, and died of tuberculosis at 28.

Stephen Crane at a glance