For the U.S. Continental Congress delegate, see Stephen Crane (delegate).

Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was an American novelist, poet and journalist. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, the 14th child of a Methodist minister. He died when he was 28.

Crane studied at Lafayette College and Syracuse University, but attained degrees from neither. After his mother's death on December 25, 1893, Crane moved to New York City, where he lived a bohemian life working as a free-lance writer and journalist. Crane wrote articles for the New York Tribune.

While supporting himself through his writing, he observed the poor in the Bowery slums as research for his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), which was a milestone in the development of literary naturalism. Crane had to print the book at his own expense with money borrowed from his brother. Crane released the book under the pseudonym "Johnston Smith." It was not a commercial success or favored by critics of the time, with the exception of Hamlin Garland. This novel first introduced readers to Crane's writing style. He is noted for the use of a method that has come to be known as "naturalism," in which characters face very realistic and often bleak circumstances. This style of writing would be a defining trait of his later work, especially The Red Badge of Courage.

Crane never married but had a long relationship with Cora Stewart-Taylor (1865 - 4 September 1910), the proprietress of the Hotel de Dream, a Jacksonville, Florida brothel. Taylor was also a writer and they worked together as war correspondents during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. They eventually settled in Brede Place, an old estate in Sussex, England, in 1897. Crane befriended writers Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and Henry James. Shortly before his death, he released Whilomville Stories (1900), the most commercially successful of his nineteen books.

"Maggie" was followed by The Red Badge of Courage (1895), a powerful tale of the American Civil War. The book won international acclaim for its realism and psychological depth in telling the story of a young soldier facing the horrors and triumphs of war for the first time. Crane hadn't experienced battle personally, but he conducted interviews with a number of veterans, some of whom may have suffered from what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. Because his depiction of the psychological as well as military aspects of war was so accurate, he was hired by the New York Journal as a correspondent during the Greco-Turkish War (1897).

In early January, 1897, a boat in which Crane accompanied a filibustering expedition to Cuba was wrecked, leaving Crane adrift for 30 hours in a ten-foot dinghy. He recounted these experiences in The Open Boat and Other Tales (1898). The background for this story, the wreck of the Cuban-exile Commodore expedition, can be found in his newspaper account (see [1].) The Commodore was attempting to land arms and men to supply the Cuban Mambi forces in the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898) [2] which would conclude with the Spanish-American War (1898).

"The Open Boat" is the best known number of Crane's stories dealing with Cuba and its wars [3]; however, a good number of Crane's other accounts are set in Cuba or about Cuba.

In 1897, Crane settled in Sussex, England, where he befriended writers Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and Henry James. Shortly before his death, he released Whilomville Stories (1900), the most commercially successful of the nineteen books he wrote.

Crane never married but had a relationship with Cora Stewart-Taylor (1865 - 4 September 1910), the proprietress of the Hotel de Dream, a Jacksonville, Florida brothel. Taylor was also a writer and they worked together as war correspondents during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. They eventually settled in Brede Place, an old estate in Sussex, England. He also wrote a short story called The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, which has themes based around the conflict between and union of what is civilized and what is uncivilized.

Crane was also the author of a book of poetry, "The Black Rider" (1895) and another novel, "Active Service" (1899), which drew in part on his experiences as a war correspondent in the Greco-Turkish War.

Crane died of tuberculosis at the age of 28, in Badenweiler, Germany on June 5, 1900. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Hillside, New Jersey.

One of Crane's poems was the basis for the 2001 film, The Dark Riders.

• Prose & Poetry: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets; The Red Badge of Courage; Stories, Sketches, Journalism; The Black Riders & War Is Kind (J.C. Levenson, ed.) (Library of America, 1984) ISBN 978-0-94045017-2.

• The Red Badge of Courage Site
• Civil War Literature
• Poems by Stephen Crane at PoetryFoundation.org
• The Stephen Crane Society includes links to texts on the web, texts of some works not available elsewhere, bibliographies, and queries and replies about Crane.
• Literary Encyclopedia(Subscription required)
• Works by Stephen Crane at Project Gutenberg
• The short story A Dark Brown Dog can be read online at American Literature
• Includes full biography, summaries of important works, and useful quotesA student's blog and paper-writing site.
• The Black Rider and Other Lines at Poets' Corner
• War is Kind and Other Lines at Poets' Corner
• Stephen Crane's Nasty Little Trick in "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky"at Mr. Renaissance: The Christian Living and Apologetics Website
• Free audiobook of "War Is Kind" from LibriVox
• Stephen Crane's Gravesite
• Crane's religion
• Free online literature of Stephen Crane
• Wells, H. G. (Aug. 1900). "Stephen Crane, from an English Standpoint". North American Monthly Review. 171: 233–242. Retrieved 2007-01-04. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)