A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia

(Hardback)

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Description

The publication of The Red Badge of Courage in 1895 brought Stephen Crane instant fame at age 23. At 28, he was dead. In the brief span of his literary career, Crane enjoyed a significant measure of renown as well as notoriety, but his reputation rested almost entirely upon his war novel, and he felt that his talent had ultimately been misjudged. From his adolescence until his death, Crane was a professional journalist. To this day, most educated American readers know him only as the author of the most realistic Civil War novel ever written, three or four action-packed short stories, and a handful of iconoclastic free-verse poems. Crane was befriended and admired by some of the most important literary figures of his time, such as William Dean Howells, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, and H. G. Wells. He has also been called a realist, a naturalist, an impressionist, a symbolist, and an existentialist. This reference book provides a more complete picture of Crane's short but furiously creative life and encourages a more extensive appreciation of his works. The volume includes hundreds of entries for members of Crane's immediate and extended family; close friends and associates; educational institutions that he attended; places where he resided; publishers and syndicates by whom he was employed; literary movements with which he is usually associated; and the works of fiction, poetry, and journalism that he wrote. Thus the book shows that he was a pioneer in the development of a number of genres in modern American fiction and poetry; that he was the first literary chronicler of the burgeoning slums of urban America who refused to sentimentalize his materials; that his Western stories reveal the steady retreat of the American frontier before the encroachments of a modern Europeanized civilization; and that his short stories and poems engage a number of enduring themes. Many of the entries cite works for further reading, and the volume includes a chronology and a bibliography of the most important studies of his life and writing.

Reviews

[H]ighly recommended for reference shelves in libraries acquiring essential works on late nineteenth century Anglo American relations, literature and culture.-Library Review
Here is a magisterial accomplishment, composed by the person best qualified to prepare it. Stanley Wertheim's longtime interest in, collecting of, and publishing about Stephen Crane come to wonderful fruition in this Encyclopedia....A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia appeals to anyone involved with Anglo-American literary currents and eddies during "transition" years. Crane was important in that transition, and as such he should not go unrecognized except as the author of either The Red Badge of Courage or Maggie - only those and nothing more. Wertheim makes us aware that there is plenty more.-English Literature in Transition
Though there are a number of books on and about Crane, including bibliographies and biographies, there is not another work like this one; it deserves to be in every college and university library.-Choice
"Highly recommended for reference shelves in libraries acquiring essential works on late nineteenth century Anglo American relations, literature and culture."-Library Review
"[H]ighly recommended for reference shelves in libraries acquiring essential works on late nineteenth century Anglo American relations, literature and culture."-Library Review
"Though there are a number of books on and about Crane, including bibliographies and biographies, there is not another work like this one; it deserves to be in every college and university library."-Choice
"Here is a magisterial accomplishment, composed by the person best qualified to prepare it. Stanley Wertheim's longtime interest in, collecting of, and publishing about Stephen Crane come to wonderful fruition in this Encyclopedia....A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia appeals to anyone involved with Anglo-American literary currents and eddies during "transition" years. Crane was important in that transition, and as such he should not go unrecognized except as the author of either The Red Badge of Courage or Maggie - only those and nothing more. Wertheim makes us aware that there is plenty more."-English Literature in Transition

Author Bio

STANLEY WERTHEIM is Professor of English at William Paterson University. His several books include The Crane Log (1994) and The Correspondence of Stephen Crane (1988). His many articles have appeared in journals such as Hemingway Review, American Literary Realism, and Stephen Crane Studies. An internationally respected Crane scholar, Wertheim was President of the Stephen Crane Society from 1992 to 1994.