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Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.
Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002
Stephen Crane (1871-1900), perhaps the State's outstanding native
literary figure, represents chiefly a revolt against formalism and smugness
in fiction, but his gifts are too varied and individual to be easily classified.
At the age of twenty-five he published The Red Badge of Courage, a
novel of the Civil War that attracted Nation-wide attention. Then, setting
out to learn of war at first hand, he joined a Cuban filibustering expedition, and suffered experiences that were later epitomized in The Open
Boat, which H. G. Wells called the finest short story in the English
language.
Meanwhile, his reputation as a writer on war brought him commissions
as war correspondent in the Greco-Turkish and Spanish-American Wars.
The private publication of Maggie: A Girl of the Streetsaroused a storm
of criticism similar to that later evoked by Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Wholly
different was the reception accorded his Whilomville Stories, an authentic
record of New Jersey village life. In his two volumes of free verse, Black
Riders and War Is Kind, Crane proved himself a master of epigrammatic
compression. The last period of his life was spent in England, where he
became the intimate friend of Joseph Conrad. He died of consumption,
and was buried at Elizabeth, New Jersey. The Stephen Crane Association
was formed to acquire his birthplace at No. 14 Mulberry Street, Newark.
Lean, tall, slow-speaking, and hollow-eyed, Stephen Crane challenged
the mores of his day with a sometimes grim, sometimes half-smiling, integrity. It is his honesty of viewpoint and method, together with his
interest in the effects of environment on character, that earned for him the
title of "father of the American psychological novel," though actually his
work barely preceded that of Dreiser.
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