There is just too much information on the late, great Stephen Crane to do justice in a review when he really deserves an exploratory thesis. Instead, I will focus on the highlights of his too-short life and the impact his writing had on readers of his work.

Best known for his legendary novel, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, and passing away at the extremely young age of 28, Crane packed in quite a life during his time with us. Award-winning author Paul Auster has composed this weighty biography, and it truly gives a deep dive into his life and work. Auster is an expert wordsmith, and his admiration for his subject is evident on every page.

"Award-winning author Paul Auster has composed this weighty biography, and it truly gives a deep dive into [Crane's] life and work. Auster is an expert wordsmith, and his admiration for his subject is evident on every page."

Crane was a burning boy from early in his youth and continues to burn 120 years after his death. However, Auster points out that his work has fallen out of favor on school reading lists. I remember having to read THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE in both grade school and high school and considered it one of my all-time favorite novels. Auster asked his daughter, now 30, if she remembered reading the book when she was in school, but she had never heard of it. Her friends, who live in various parts of the country, also had no recollection of it. Auster wonders why Melville and Whitman remain literary standbys on these lists, while Crane has been forgotten.

Crane was a true prodigy, and his family swore he could read by the age of four. The earliest surviving work written by him was composed just after he turned eight --- a Christmas-inspired poem, “I’d Rather Have,” which rang with the maturity of a writer years older. He attended local public schools and at the age of 14 went to Pennington Seminary. His mind was set on West Point and a military career, not religious service, but he settled for Claverack College and Hudson River Institute.

Like Mary Shelley and Georg Büchner, Crane developed almost as rapidly as they did, moving at such an accelerated pace that in the five-and-a-half years he spent in and around New York, he progressed from floundering apprentice to ferocious innovator, an artist in full possession of his talents and vision of the world. Unfortunately, his time in New York was during the worst economic climate the country had ever known, and he barely had a penny to his name to show from the sale of THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. He then penned his most famous novella, MAGGIE, followed by THE MONSTER, which is set in a town modeled after Port Jervis and features a Black man as the protagonist.

Crane famously battled former friend and New York police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt in a case where he defended an imprisoned prostitute during her trial. He would later begin work as a war correspondent, which is where he met the love of his life, Cora Taylor, who is recognized as being the first female war correspondent. It was during their time in Germany that Crane was stricken with meningitis, which took his life. During his time overseas, he had befriended such famous British authors as Henry James and Joseph Conrad, each of whom wept at his funeral.

Auster states that Crane’s work demands to be read slowly and deliberately, sentence by sentence, with brief pauses in between to digest the full import of what they contain. I can only hope that, with the publication of BURNING BOY, a new generation of readers will find Crane. At the very least, I highly recommend THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE to anyone who has not had the pleasure of reading it yet. This celebrated war novel, which is also a psychological portrayal of fear, truly exhibits the burning boy who was Stephen Crane at the height of his skills.