Title: Badge of courage : the life of Stephen Crane /
Authors: Davis, Linda H.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin,
Year: 1998
Subjects: Crane, Stephen,; Authors, American Biography
Abstract: World famous at twenty-four, brilliant, reckless, and ultimately tragic, Stephen Crane is a dramatic study in contradictions. His most famous work, The Red Badge of Courage, is a classic antiwar novel, yet Crane himself longed for military honors. The son of a repressive Methodist minister who preached that reading novels was a vice, he used his literary stature to help defend a prostitute against the corrupt New York City police, which ruined his reputation and cost him the friendship of Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt. An easterner who fancied himself a cowboy, he spent his last years on a ramshackle estate in England, entertaining friends, including Joseph Conrad, Henry James, Ford Madox Ford, and H.G. Wells, who described him as "beyond dispute, the best writer of our generation." To those who knew him, Crane was unforgettable. Yet because he left behind so few personal documents, his life has been shrouded in misconception and myth. In this first accurate, in-depth account of the legendary writer, Linda Davis vividly describes Crane's short but endlessly fascinating life and assesses the full extent of his literary contribution.
Contents: The parsonage. How do you spell "O"? -- Great bugs at Onondaga -- The girl who blossomed in a mud puddle -- The noise of rumors -- The commanding power of genius -- The battlefield. Yellow sky -- The coming man -- Red hair -- God save Crane -- They say Smolenski wept -- Living Tally -- The manor. Warm and endless friendship -- The best moment of anybody's life -- The ashes of love -- Lord Tholepin of Mango Chutney -- The red room.