Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900) was born in Newark, New Jersey, on November 1, 1871, the 14th child of a Methodist minister. He started to write stories at the age of eight and at 16 he was writing articles for the New York Tribune. Crane studied at Lafayette College and Syracuse University. After his mother's death in 1890 - his father had died earlier - Crane moved to New York, where he lived a bohemian life, and worked as a free-lance writer and journalist. While supporting himself by his writing, he lived among the poor in the Bowery slums to research his first novel, 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, borrowing the money from his brother. Crane released the book under the pseudonym "Johnston Smith." It was not a commercial success, though it was praised by several critics of the time. It was in this novel that readers were first introduced to Crane's writing style. He used 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.
This 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 never experienced battle personally, but 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 aspect of war was so accurate, he was hired by a number of newspapers as a correspondent during the Greco-Turkish War (e.g. "Death and the Child" (1898)) and the Spanish-American War.
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Naturalism :: Periods and Movements

ClassicNotes: About Stephen Crane - Biography.
Literature Online: Stephen Crane Biography - Detailed biography, including literary career and his legacy.
Stephen Crane - Biography and Poems - Includes a brief biography and a collection of Crane's most important poems, by AmericanPoems.com.
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