Badge of Courage
In a biography of Stephen Crane, known for his novel Red Badge of Courage published in 1895, Linda H. Davis retells the life of a writer who "...held his career above his comfort." Crane died when he was only 28 years old, but in the last five years of his life he wrote five novels, two volumes of poetry, two books of war stories, and countless works of short fiction and magazine articles.
Stephen was the 14th and last child born to Helen Peck Crane. His father Jonathan was a Methodist minister, and his mother later became a leader in the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Much of Stephen's interest in writing came from his parents, but he never cared much for religion, and he became quite dependent on alcohol and cigarettes at an early age. His brother Edmund characterized him as "...poorly dressed and ill fed..." but committed to his writing.
Some of Crane's first subject matter came from New York City, where Davis says "...in writing about the bowery...he became a part of the wretched masses." His novel, Maggie, was about a girl of the streets, and he published it himself. He became a friend, and later an enemy, of Teddy Roosevelt, who was at that time a police commissioner in New York. Roosevelt blamed Stephen for taking the side of a prostitute who was on trial.
Although Stephen Crane attended a military school for a brief period, his book Red Badge of Courage came from imagination rather than experience. He recalled, "I got my sense of rage and conflict on the football field." But after it was published, Crane wanted to see how accurate his story was and became deeply involved in both the Turkey/Greece War and the Spanish/American War in the 1890s as a war correspondent.
Cora Tayler, one of Crane's girlfriends, who later posed as Mrs. Stephen Crane, joined him as a correspondent in Greece. After that war, Stephen and Cora settled in England, first at Ravenbrook and then Brede Place. But they spent a lot of their time writing to Crane's publishers for advances and money to live on. Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells were two of Crane's closest friends at that time.
Stephen and Cora moved to Germany in 1900 in an attempt to cure his tuberculoses, but after a short time, he died there. A friend later described Stephen as, "A most alive person, so alive that news of his death seemed a mistake."
Besides Maggie and Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane is also well-known for The Monster, a novella, "War is Kind", a poem, and the stories "The Open Boat", "The Blue Hotel", and "The Bride comes to Yellow Sky."
Linda Davis writes a very compelling account of Stephen Crane's short but productive life. Besides three sections of photographs, her book includes an epilogue, notes, and a selected bibliography. The Badge of Courage was published in 1998.