History of Steve Crane
...William Dean Howells, who helped Crane receive backing for his next project, The Red Badge of Courage. Published in 1895, The Red Badge was quite different from Maggie in style and approach, and brought Crane international fame and quite a bit of money. Rather than plod through moral tropes, the book is subtle and imagistic, while still being firmly entrenched in the realism of the late 1890's in America. Crane's rich portrayal of Henry Fleming's growth through the trials and terrors of a Civil War battle betray the fact that he himself had not yet seen any fighting or battles when he wrote the book. Many veterans of the Civil War (only thirty years had gone by since its end) praised the book for capturing the feelings and pictures of actual combat. Bolstered by the success of The Red Badge and his book of poetry The Black Riders, Crane became subsumed with ideas of war. He was hired to go to Cuba as a journalist to report on the rebellion there against the Spanish. On the way to the island, Crane was in a shipwreck, from which he was originally reported dead. He rowed to shore in a dinghy, along with three other men, having to swim to shore and drop his money in the sea to prevent from drowning. This experience directly led to his most famous short story "The Open Boat" (1897). For various reasons, Crane stopped writing novels during this time and moved primarily to short stories‹probably because they could sell in magazines better but also because he was constantly moving. When staying in Jacksonville, Florida, he met the owner of a brothel, Cora Taylor. She accompanied him to Greece as he reported on the Greco-Turkish War for New York newspapers; and stayed with him until the end of his life. At this point, rumors abounded about Crane, few of them good. There was ...