Stephen Crane

(1871 - 1900)

After spending less than two years at college, Stephen Crane moved to New York City to live a bohemian life in the Bowery slums, an experience which provided him with the material for his first book, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, published in 1893. After befriending influential critic William Dean Howells, Crane was able to get his Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage, published in 1895, bringing him international fame. Suffering from ill heath and a variety of financial problems for most of his life, Crane died in 1900 at the age of twenty-eight.