The New York herald., 1922-12-10


timeliness that may be considered as
significant, Messrs. Doubleday, Page &
Co. are bringing out his volume of essays,
Notes on Life and Letters" There is
always so much to say about new book
by Conrad that what is said in the end is
naturally a matter of selection. For eX-
ample, one chapter in the present volume,
that on Stephen Crane, recalls an exceed
ingly vivid and interesting American per-
sonality Twenty-odd years ago Crane was
one of the most conspicuous figures in
American literary life. Here was a
youngster in his early twenties who in
1.-The Red Badge of Courage" pictured
the grim reality of war in a manner that
amazed the living veterans of the four
years struggle between North and South.
Here was youth who in Maggie; a
Girl of the Streets seemed to be blazing
realism. But Crane died very young.
How far he might have gone is prob
lematical. The new generation that is
coming up knows little of him.
p ICHARD HARDING DAVIS once
1e wrote very clever story of the
Spanish-American War Called The Der
elict" The figure of the Derelict was
generally supposed to have been drawn
from Stephen Crane. Crane was born in
Newark, New Jersey, and was educated
at Lafayette College and Syracuse Uni
versity. While an undergraduate he
used to spend much of his spare time in
the typesetting rooms of local newspa-
pers. In 1892 he found his way to New
York with the idea of going into news
paper work. Day after day he tramped
Park Row, climbing grimy stairways,
timidly approaching "city editors until
at length, when ON the verge of absolute
destitution, he found work in a mer-
camille house. His leisure hours were
given over to the writing of stories, and
to rambles through the New York East
Side. Maggie" was his first book. 1t
was repeatedly rejected, but finally a
publisher was found who offered to bring
it out at the authors expense. Crane ac-
cepted the chance, literally living on
bread and water to save money with
which to pay the publisher.
EErTNHE RED BADGE OF COURAGE"
was written in 1893. the same year
as Maggie; Girl of the Streets" There
was at the time current a story to
the effect that Crane had turned out
the war story of $4,000 words in three
days time. That yarn was manifestly
an absurdity Allowing the author twelve
hours out of the seventy-two for sleep
it would have meant sixty hours of labor
at the rate of thousand words an hour.
The success of the book was immediate,
not only in this country but also in Eng
land. The story was at first commonly
accepted as having been written by one
who had lived vividly through the War
of Secession and the discovery that its
author had been born five years after the
termination of that struggle provoked
universal surprise. "The Red Badge of
Courage" made Stephen Crane highly de-
sirable as a war correspondent when
trouble came in the Balkans and later
in Cuba, and it was probably his work
in that capacity that suggested to Rich
ard Harding Davis the plot of "The Dere-
lict"
JOSEPH CONRAD of course knew
- Stephen Crane in England where
Crane went after he had been brought
into bitter contact with the New York
police as a result of his defense of an
t1nfnrtunatn ,uornnr, he