Complete Works of Stephen Crane

by Stephen Crane

  If it had not been for the self-denial of Stephen Crane, Edward Marshall, the correspondent who was wounded at Guasimas, would not be alive to-day. Crane has never received one-half the credit that was due to him in that matter, declares a war-correspondent who spent much time with him in Cuba:

  “Crane, Harding, Davis, Klein, Laine, and Marshall were among the very few correspondents who were actually in the Guasimas fight. When Marshall went down with a bullet through his spine, the other correspondents rushed to him for a moment, and then went on with the Rough Riders. But Crane did more. He stayed beside him until the field doctors had examined Marshall and found that nothing but a speedy operation could save his life. After that he walked back five miles alone into Siboney, found there other correspondents, and begged them to come and carry Marshall in. By that time Crane, who was never a very strong man, was thoroughly played out. Nevertheless, being the one person who knew exactly where Marshall lay, he insisted on making the trip over the hills again. During that walk out to Marshall’s rescue Crane showed himself in quite a new light. His description of what he had seen of the fight was simplicity. Before we had been ten minutes out from Siboney, those damned wood doves began to call all over the place,’ said Crane. ‘You remember how they used to call down at Guantanamo just before the shooting began. Well, I knew what it meant all right, and it brought my heart up in my mouth. I told Roosevelt about it, but he only laughed, and when I spoke to some of the soldiers about they looked on me as an alarmist. Well, the calls kept up for twenty or thirty minutes, and then suddenly the dagoes opened fire. I saw poor Ham Fish bowled over, and then I heard Marshall calling for help. I couldn’t get to him for about ten minutes, and then everybody but the doctors had gone on.’”

  There were occasions, however, when Crane’s unselfishness was not so manifest. There were times when he frankly confessed he would have committed any crime in the Decalogue for the sake of a bottle of beer:

  “Just after the surrender of Santiago, Jack Mumford and another correspondent set sail from Siboney on the yacht Anita with orders to catch up with General Miles, who had already started for Puerto Rico. Mumford was first out of the yellow fever hospital, and among the many treasures which the Anita boasted, none was more treasured than six bottles of Milwaukee beer. Both men had agreed that this beer should not be touched until Miles had been sighted. On the third day out the Anita sighted a small tugboat, and after each boat had clearly demonstrated to the other that it was not a Spanish man o’-war in disguise, some airy persiflage was indulged in through the megaphone.

  “The first question from the tugboat was, ‘ Say, have you fellows got any beer?’ Both correspondents sprang to their feet simultaneously, exclaiming: ‘That’s Crane.’ Then, as loud as the megaphone could make it, they shrieked: ‘Not a drop I’ But Crane’s thirst was not to be put off so easily. In ten minutes he was alongside in a rowboat. ‘You fellows can carry me to St. Thomas, if you like. I’m sick of that tugboat. It isn’t congenial.’ Once on board, Crane announced that he was tired, and went below. An hour later his hosts found him slumbering peacefully, with the six empty bottles beside his trunk. Later on, when apologies might have been expected to be in order, Crane remarked briefly: ‘Beer isn’t good for you fellows, anyway. It would only make you fat.’”

  But the most characteristically Crane incident of the war took place in the trenches at Guantanamo on the first afternoon of the marines:

  “Dr. Gibbs (who was killed a few hours later in the engagement), Crane, and three other correspondents who had just arrived as the battle began, were lying flat on their stomachs on the brow of the hill. The bullets were flying about pretty thick, when one of the men who had known Crane in New York said: ‘I say, Crane, how does this compare with your “Red Badge of Courage”?’ ‘Oh, hell,’ said Crane, ‘ this isn’t half as exciting.’”

  Had he lived, Crane was to have undertaken a commission for the Morning Post to the famous island of St. Helena, where General Cronje and many Boer prisoners are temporarily confined.

  From: Book Notes, New Series, V. 1, No. 1, June 1898, p.32

  Book Notes, New Series, V. 1, No. 1, June 1898

  Mr. Ambrose Bierce has just published a new edition of his “In the Midst of Life. Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.” They contain descriptions of battle somewhat similar to those in Mr. Stephen Crane’s more recent “The Red Badge of Courage,” though it is doubtful if Mr. Crane had read the book before writing his well-known novel. In America some of Mr. Bierce’s admirers consider his work superior to Mr. Crane’s. Mr. Bierce, who won his spurs in literature in California, and at one time did work for comic papers in London, is now living in New York, whence he came to join the editorial staff of one of the popular dailies.

  Mr. Stephen Crane, who is at present in England, has been devoting himself partly to the writing of poetry, for which he is even less known in England than in America. A year before publishing “The Red Badge of Courage” Mr. Crane brought out, through the Boston firm of Copeland & Day, a curious little volume, called “The Black Riders and Other Lines.” The verses, if verses they could be called, were more unconventional in form than the poetic utterances of Walt Whitman, but many of them were original and dramatic. Though the Nation, of New York, and a few other journals praised the book, it apparently made so little impression that, when “ The Red Badge of Courage “ became popular, very few of its readers discovered that the two volumes had come from the same hand. Mr. Crane has since published more verses in the American periodicals, chiefly in the whimsical little magazine called the Philistine, which “hails” from the little town of East Aurora, New York. But they do not, all of them, come up to the best work in “The Black Riders.” In America Mr. Crane’s more recent books have not repeated the success of “The Red Badge of Courage.” His later work, “The Third Violet,” was severely treated by the Press in the United States, and “George’s Mother” quite failed to attract American readers, while on the whole Crane’s works are being more appreciated in England.

  From: The Critic, V. XXVII, No. 791, April 17, 1897, p.277

  The Critic, V. XXVII, No. 791, April 17, 1897

  Mr. Stephen Crane has flitted through London this week on his way to the scene of insurrections in Crete, but his visit was of the briefest. Indeed, it was characterized by extreme and refreshing modesty, being conspicuously free of the tendency to self-advertisement which is so often characteristic of the Novelist’s Progress. He reached London early on Monday morning and left it on Thursday afternoon. Within a few hours of his arrival, he naturally made his first calling-place the house of his publisher, Mr. Heinemann, who has worked so hard to push his books in this country. He seems much pleased with the reception of his work in England, and jokingly remarked that he was off to Crete because, having written so much about war, he thought it high time he should see a little fighting. Which proves him a man of humor — an excellent thing in letters.

  London, 2 April, 1897, Arthur Waugh

  From: The Lafayette, V. XXVII, No. 3, October 5, 1900, p.26-27

  REMINISCENCE OF STEPHEN CRANE. (The Lafayette, V. XXVII, No. 3, October 5, 1900)

  We clip the following from the San Francisco Call, written for that paper by a contributor.

  Crane was not an eccentric character. Many people have said that he was. It was even told in print in this city that he was a drug-taker. Such stories were absurd. He was merely the combination of clean, fine youth with genius. When one writes “fine youth” of Stephen Crane the expression is qualified. He was never physically strong. His greatest eccentricity was his habit for all night work. I never saw him wholly at bodily ease. He was not a persistent worker, because his body — a body which suffered from the constant draining of an intensely active mind — was ever too weak to bear continuous labor. His brain never rested.

  Yet when emergencies arose so also did Crane. He was a correspondent on one New York newspaper during the war with Spain. I was correspondent on another N
ew York newspaper. On June 23rd I was told that a battle would occur the next day. I asked Crane if he intended to go to the front. It was insufferably hot, and we had all learned to distrust rumors. He decided not to go. I was amazed by his apparent indolence. I went to the battle and was badly hurt by a bullet. When I regained consciousness, hours after the fight had ended, one of the first faces I saw was that of Stephen Crane. The day was hot. The thermometer — had there been such an instrument in that God-forsaken and man-invaded wilderness — would have shown a temperature of something like 100 degrees. Yet Stephen Crane — and mind you, he was there in the interest of a rival newspaper — took the despatch which I managed to write, five or six miles to the coast and cabled it for me. He had to walk, for he could get no horse or mule. Then he rushed about in the heat and arranged with a number of men to bring a stretcher up from the coast and carry me back on it. He was probably as tired then as a man could be and still walk. But he trudged back from the coast to the field hospital where I was lying and saw to it that I was properly conveyed to the coast.

  One day in 1890 a young man came to my office with a letter of introduction. He was thin — almost cadaverous. He wanted work and got it. His article — written for a ridiculously low price — on tenement-house fire panics, was one of the best things that he or any other man ever did. It was followed by other strikingly strong stories.

  One day he said to me most modestly: “I have written some verse.” He handed me a package of manuscript. The next day I left the package on an elevated railroad train. I never told him about it, for within twenty-four hours I had recovered it from the lost property office of the Manhattan L. The manuscript was that of “The Black Riders,” which had a tremendous vogue in England.

  We were both members of a club made up of writers. The best part of its furnishings was a great open fireplace. Four or five of us sat before it one night and Crane read us parts of a story full of fighting. It was “The Red Badge of Courage.” Afterward, when we had really seen fighting together, I marveled because his stories of actual battle were less realistic than his descriptions of imaginary conflicts in this book. It was that faculty which would have made of Crane a great novelist. He had an accurate and logical imagination.

  In losing Crane, America lost one of her most promising young writers. But his friends lost more. They lost a chap whom they all knew to be a real man as well as a talented acquaintance.

  From: The Editor, V. V, No. 3, March 1897, p.90

  The Editor, V. V, No. 3, March 1897

  And now it seems that Stephen Crane was hired by a syndicate of papers to make that trip on board the Commodore. When the steamer went down, and the survivors in open boats, with’ great difficulty, reached the Florida coast, Crane went to a telegraph office and wearily wrote this dispatch to his papers: “Too tired to write; will do so later.” Then he went to bed and to sleep. It is hardly necessary to add that while special correspondent Crane slept the newspaper men on shore were pumping columns of information out of Crane’s companions, and pouring it into the New York offices by wire. Mr. Crane has not yet learned that a newspaper man can never be too tired to write.

  From: The Publisher’s Circular, V. 66, No. 1595, January 23, 1897, p.106

  The Publisher’s Circular, V. 66, No. 1595, January 23, 1897

  Now that Mr. Stephen Crane is known to be safe, writers of adventure-stories will be envying him his recent experiences. These were thrilling enough even for a Rider Haggard. Mr. Crane has already given a short account of his adventures on the Commodore, and we shall doubtless hear more of them. Certainly they seem well worth relating, and probably the enterprising syndicate is already on Mr. Crane’s track for copy. If he is wise for himself, however, he will husband his material and write a book for boys, founded on fact. A description of how the Commodore went down and how the survivors fought for their lives would make a vivid and dramatic tale.

  From: The Academy, No. 1309 – New Series, June 5, 1897, p.592

  The Academy, No. 1309 – New Series, June 5, 1897

  Mr. Stephen Crane’s account of his deliverance from the shipwreck of the Commodore, which is printed in the June Scribner, is a marvellous piece of narrative. The author and three other men — the captain, who was wounded, the cook and an oiler — escaped in a dingy. Mr. Crane begins his narrative on the afternoon of their third day. They were washed ashore the next morning. Mr. Crane’s story is a remarkable study in impressionism.

  From: The Book Buyer, V. XIV, No. 5, June 1897, p.459-460

  The Book Buyer, V. XIV, No. 5, June 1897

  Mr. Stephen Crane was shipwrecked on the steamer Commodore last fall off the coast of Florida while on his way to Cuba as a correspondent, and he has written in the June Scribner the account of his experience. It is interesting to note that his own feelings in the presence of a real terror were very similar to the imagined feelings of terror as portrayed in the “Red Badge of Courage.” And in this case it will hardly do for some old sailor to say, as certain soldiers said of the book, that “the boy doesn’t know what he is talking about,” because the shipwreck was quite a real one. The correspondent and three other men floated for two days in a small open boat with nothing to eat, and one of the four was drowned and the others expected to be.

  From: The Month in Literature, Art and Life, V. I, No. 3, March 1897, p.220

  The Month in Literature, Art and Life, V. I, No. 3, March 1897

  There has been some improvement in the American newsgathering of English newspapers, but a laughable illustration of the inefficiency of their service has been presented in their recent obituaries of Mr. Stephen Crane. As it was quite evident from the first reports that Mr. Crane left the ill-fated Commodore in the captain’s boat and reached land with his companions, the necessity for cabling an obviously unfounded rumor is not apparent. It is interesting to observe that The Daily News in its demi- obituary notice solemnly reasserts the exploded fable that ‘‘ The Red Badge “was “first praised in England.” The true facts in the case have been pointed out again and again, but evidently without reaching at least some English editors. “The Red Badge “ was published in this country two months before its actual publication in England, and had nearly passed through its second edition before English readers saw the book, to say nothing of the fact that it had been “discovered “ and reviewed from Maine to California before a single English reviewer had received it.

  Now, Americans are not in the habit of shouting reproachfully at England that she is imitating them. Thomas De Quincey and Herbert Spencer were appreciated in this country before England recognized them; Robert Louis Stevenson had a host of enthusiastic admirers here before England discovered him; America brought forward Felix Gras, the Provencal romancer, and introduced his “Reds of the Midi” to England. But we do not think it worth while to keep up an incessant chatter over our acumen, and we have hardly smiled at England’s change from scorn of our “Trilby” enthusiasm to hysterics which easily paralleled ours. And how about Carlyle? I have an impression that Emerson “boomed” him in this country long before his own people awakened to his greatness. And did not Mrs. Browning find many of her earliest admirers among us? Yet the English reviewer clings to his “Red Badge” myth:—” After English praise, the author’s countrymen reconsidered their verdict.”

  From: The New York Times, June 6, 1900

  Stephen Crane Dead. (The New York Times, June 6, 1900)

  BADENWEILER, Baden, June 5. — Stephen Crane, the American author and war correspondent, died here to-day, aged thirty years.

  Stephen Crane stepped early into literary notice because of his power in word painting. “The Red Badge of Courage,” his first published novel, drew approving comment from various quarters, and some speculation regarding the author. In England the opinion was advanced that he must be a veteran soldier, since no one who had not been under fire could so well describe a battle. Mr. Crane dismissed this theory by saying that he got his ideas from the football field.


  After this introduction, in 1895, to book readers, Mr. Crane issued a book called “Maggie: A Girl of the Streets,” which had been written by him when he was about sixteen years old and printed privately. In the five years between these books he occupied himself with miscellaneous newspaper and sketch work in this city, printing among other things verses entitled “The Black Riders, and Other Lines.” He printed “George’s Mother” in 1896, and “The Little Regiment,” a war story, and “The Third Violet,” in 1897, his books by that time having vogue both here and abroad.

  “The Red Badge of Courage” was written while he was in New York writing sketches for the various newspapers and in very indifferent financial circumstances. His inspiration for it came from an artist friend whose studio he was visiting. Crane had been reading a war story in a current magazine, which he finally tossed aside in disgust, saying that he could write a better story himself.

  “Why don’t you do it, then?” said his friend.

  “I will,” said Crane, snatching up his hat and leaving the room. The next three days he secured all the books he could find on the civil war in the various public libraries and read carefully the accounts of several battles. He knew little or nothing about the civil war when he started, but when he had finished his studies he was thoroughly imbued with local color. The story which he produced was refused by all the publishers, but was afterward accepted in a condensed form for $90 by a newspaper syndicate.