THE WORLD OF STEPHEN CRANE AND HIS WRITINGS
ABOUT NEW YORK
| 1871 |
Stephen Crane is born on
November 1 at 14 Mulberry Street, Newark, New Jersey, the last of
his parents’ fourteen children. |
| 1878 |
Stephen enrolls in
school. His father becomes pastor of the Drew Methodist Church in
Port Jervis, in upstate New York. |
| 1880 |
Stephen’s father dies of
heart failure. |
| 1883 |
Stephen and his mother
move to Asbury Park, a town on the New Jersey coast. |
| 1885 |
Concerned about Stephen’s
digressions from Methodist teachings , his mother enrolls him at
Pennington Seminary, a school where his father had once been the
principal. He writes his first story, “Uncle Jake and the
Bell-Handle.” Stephen becomes intrigued by the battles of the Civil
War and decides to pursue a career in the army. |
| 1888 |
In January, Stephen
enrolls at the Hudson River Institute, a semi-military school in
upstate Claverack, New York. He works as a gossip reporter for his
brother Townley’s news agency; his vignettes appear in “On the
Jersey Coast,” a column in Townley’s New York Tribune. |
| 1890 |
In February, Stephen’s
first signed publication, an essay on the Christian virtues of Sir
Henry Morton Stanley’s African expedition , appears in the school
magazine. In September, he enrolls at Lafayette College, in
Pennsylvania, to pursue a more practical profession, mining
engineering. He does poorly in his studies and fails a course in
theme writing. After one semester, he withdraws from Lafayette.
Rudyard Kipling’s The Light That Failed, serialized in
Lippincott’s magazine, inspires Stephen to develop his own
style of writing. How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis’s
groundbreaking expose of the sordid living conditions of New York
City’s tenement dwellers, is published. |
| 1891 |
Stephen’s mother enrolls
him as a “special student” in the Scientific Course at Syracuse
University, where she hopes he will be influenced by the school’s
strict Methodist codes. He joins the baseball team and transfers
his Delta Upsilon fraternity membership from Lafayette. He
continues to write for the New York Tribune and publishes a
story, “The King’s Favor,” in the University Herald, the
Syracuse literary magazine. In June, Stephen leaves Syracuse and
joins the Tribune as a seasonal reporter In August, he meets
Hamlin Garland, a radical-minded young writer and critic from
Boston, after he writes a review of Garland’s lecture on William
Dean Howells at Avon-by-theSea , New Jersey. Garland will have a
profound influence on Stephen’s development as a writer. |
| 1892 |
In July, five of Stephen
Crane’s anecdotal stories about his camping and fishing trips in
Sullivan County, New York, are published in the Tribune. He
is dismissed from his job when his report of a parade of workers in
Asbury Park embarrasses Whitelaw Reid, the Tribune’s owner
and a U.S. vice presidential candidate. In the fall, Crane moves to
New York to work for the Herald. |
| 1893 |
Maggie is
published at Crane’s expense, under the pseudonym Johnston Smith.
The novel catches the eye of Garland and William Dean Howells, both
literary realists, who befriend Crane. In April, Crane begins to
write The Red Badge of Courage. |
| 1894 |
In late February, Crane
and a friend dress in rags, wait in a bread line, and spend the
night in a flophouse—experiences that inspire the stories “An
Experiment in Misery” and “The Men in the Storm”; these pieces are
published in the New York Press and The Arena, respectively.
In the spring, Crane begins another New York novel, George’s
Mother. An abridged version of The Red Badge of Courage
is published in the Philadelphia Press and other newspapers in
December. Crane writes “A Night at the Millionaire’s Club,” a
mocking dig at the snobbish club members. |
| 1895 |
He tours the American
West and Mexico as a roving reporter for the Bacheller-Johnson
Syndicate. He meets author Willa Cather in Lincoln, Nebraska. His
experiences out West will inspire two of his best-known stories,
“The Bride Comes to |
|
Yellow Sky” (1897) and
“The Blue Hotel” (1898). Upon his return from Mexico, he settles in
Hartwood, New York. Appleton publishes The Red Badge of
Courage in October. Cuba, rebelling against rule by Spain,
declares “Independence or death.” The United States increases its
involvement in resolving the Spanish-Cuban conflict. The Black
Riders, Crane’s first book of verse, is published. |
| 1896 |
The Red Badge of
Courage receives critical acclaim—Crane wins recognition from
Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells. “The Veteran ,” a short story that
features the protagonist of The Red Badge of Courage as an
old man, is published in McClure’s Magazine in June and
collected in The Little Regiment and Other Episodes of the
American Civil War. In November, Crane travels to Jacksonville,
Florida, as a newspaper correspondent covering the Cuban
insurrection against Spain; he tries to book passage on a vessel
that will run the blockade of the island. He checks into the St.
James Hotel under the name Samuel Carleton and arranges passage to
Cuba on the Commodore. He meets Cora Stewart, the
wellmannered , literary-minded owner of the Hotel de Dream brothel,
who will become his common-law wife. George’s Mother is
published, and Maggie is reissued in its original form. |
| 1897 |
On January 1, Crane
embarks on the Commodore, which sinks on January 2. Crane
and three others escape in a dinghy and reach Florida’s east coast
on the morning of January 3. On January 7 Crane publishes a
newspaper account of the sinking. While recuperating, he composes
“The Open Boat,” which recounts the thirty hours spent in the
dinghy; the story is first published in the June issue of
Scribner’s Magazine. Crane serves as a correspondent during
the brief Greco-Turkish War. He and Cora move to England; he is
welcomed into the literary circle of Ford Madox Ford and Henry
James, and meets Joseph Conrad , who becomes a close friend. |
| 1898 |
The United States
declares war on Spain. Crane returns to the United States to become
a war correspondent for the New York World. The Open Boat and
Other Stories is published. |
| 1899 |
In January, Crane returns
to England and moves with Cora to Brede Place, an ancient manor in
Sussex. The couple exchanges visits with Henry James, the Conrads,
Ford, and the |
|
Wellses, often at Lamb
House, James’s cottage in Rye. While working on his novel
The O‘Ruddy, Crane falls ill with tuberculosis . In
December, he is debilitated with severe hemorrhaging of the lungs.
His second book of verse, War Is Kind, is published , as is
The Monster and Other Stories. |
| 1900 |
Despite his deteriorating
health, Crane continues to work on The O’Ruddy and other
short pieces. In the spring, while in Badenweiler , Germany, he
collapses. Cora checks him into a sanitarium , where he dies on
June 5 . Wounds in the Rain, a collection of Cuban war
stories, is published after his death, as is Whilomville
Stories, a childhood memoir. |
| 1903 |
The O’Ruddy, an
Irish romance completed after Crane’s death by Robert Barr, is
published. |
| 1923- 1925 |
A biography of Crane is
published. Willa Cather and H. L. Mencken are among the writers who
create introductions to a new twelve-volume collection of Crane’s
work. |
| 1950- 1970 |
Author John Berryman’s
biography and R. W Stallman’s anthology of Crane’s best work are
published, as is a complete edition of his works by the University
Press of Virginia. Crane is generally recognized as one of the
major forces in modern American literature. |
