— Ch. 1 · The Ninth Child's Burden —
Stephen Crane.
~8 min read · Ch. 1 of 8
Stephen Crane entered the world on the 1st of November 1871, in Newark, New Jersey. He was the fourteenth and final child born to Jonathan Townley Crane and Mary Helen Peck Crane. His mother had already lost four children to infancy before he arrived. This tragic history cast a long shadow over his early years. The family moved to Port Jervis, New York, in 1876 when Stephen was five. There his father served as pastor of Drew Methodist Church until his death. Dr. Crane died on the 16th of February 1880, at the age of sixty. Stephen was only eight years old when his father passed away. More than one thousand four hundred people attended the funeral. The loss of his father left the young boy in the care of various relatives. He lived with his brother Edmund for a time. Later he resided with his brother William in Port Jervis. His sister Helen took him to Asbury Park to stay with their brother Townley. Townley worked as a professional journalist. Another sister named Agnes joined them in New Jersey. She cared for the young Stephen while working at an intermediate school. Tragedy struck again within a few years. Townley and his wife Fannie lost two young children. Fannie died of Bright's disease in November 1883. Agnes became ill and died on the 10th of June 1884, from meningitis at the age of twenty-eight. These deaths shaped the fragile nature of Crane's childhood.
The Boy Who Left School
Crane wrote his first novel Maggie: A Girl of the Streets privately in early 1893. He spent $869 to print 1,100 copies using money inherited from his mother. The book failed to sell and he gave away a hundred copies. Critics called it the first work of American literary Naturalism despite its initial rejection. Hamlin Garland reviewed the work in June 1893 calling it truthful yet fragmentary. In March 1894 he began writing The Red Badge of Courage. He wrote from midnight until four or five each morning on legal-sized paper. Because he could not afford a typewriter he rewrote entire pages when making changes. The story centers on Henry Fleming, a young soldier who flees combat. Crane borrowed the surname Fleming from his sister-in-law's maiden name. McClure's Magazine delayed publishing the novel but offered him an assignment about coal mines instead. Irving Bacheller agreed to publish The Red Badge of Courage serially from December 3 to 9, 1895. The Philadelphia Press editorial declared Crane a new name everyone would talk about. Appleton published two printings in 1895 and up to eleven more in 1896. H.L. Mencken described the arrival as lightning out of a clear winter sky. Joseph Conrad later said the novel detonated with the force of a twelve-inch shell. The Detroit Free Press warned readers they might pray never to see such battlefield horrors.
On the