Stephen Crane

Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1871, Stephen Crane became one of the key voices in American realism and early naturalism. He is best remembered for The Red Badge of Courage (1895), a Civil War novel famous for its intense picture of a soldier's inner fear and courage, but his range was much wider than that one book.

Crane also wrote Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, a stark early novel of urban poverty, along with memorable short fiction such as "The Open Boat," "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," and "The Blue Hotel." His work often feels modern because it is so direct and unsentimental, and because he paid close attention to how people think and react under pressure.

He also worked as a journalist and war correspondent, experiences that shaped both his reporting and his fiction. Crane died in Badenweiler, Germany, in 1900, still in his twenties, yet his influence on later writers was lasting and far larger than his brief life might suggest.