Classic American Short Stories

by Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Kate Chopin, Stephen Crane, Sherwood Anderson, Herman Melville, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe, O. Henry, Bret Harte

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Stephen Crane Biography

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Stephen Crane Biography

Stephen Crane was born on November 1, 1871, the last of fourteen children in a devout Methodist family. Son to a roaming minister, Crane soon left his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey, to begin a life of wandering. His schooling was short-lived, and Crane began a writing career by going to work with his brother on a newspaper in New York.

Crane's first serious attempt to publish a novel was unsuccessful. In Maggie: A Girl of the Street, Crane wrote about the harsh realities of a prostitute's life, but the novel's material made it nearly impossible for him to obtain a publisher. Crane's next endeavor, however, The Red Badge of Courage, proved successful.

Crane's thirst for new experiences led him to Cuba, to cover its rebellion against Spain. While in Florida, though, he met and fell in love with Cora Taylor, a married woman. Crane traveled to Greece, where he worked as a war correspondent. While in Greece, Cora unexpectedly joined Crane, and the unmarried couple then moved to Sussex, England.

In 1898, Crane once again traveled to Cuba as a war correspondent, this time during the Spanish-American War. While in Cuba, however, he contracted malaria, and his health rapidly deteriorated.

Stephen Crane died from tuberculosis in 1900, at the age of 29.

  • timberland – a forest
  • intangible – unable to felt or touched; fake
  • undulations – wave-like movements
  • Chilcoot Pass – [Chilkoot] a passageway once used by the Chilcoot people. The pass made its way between the Pacific coast and the Yukon River Valley. Eventually, people began using the passage to search for gold in the center of Alaska.
  • Dyea – a nearly abandoned town in Alaska near the Chilcoot Pass
  • Dawson – a town in Canada in Yukon Territory; this town was very popular during the Klondike gold rush in the late 1800s.
  • Nulato – a minimally populated Alaskan town
  • St. Michael – a very small city in Alaska, bordering the Bering Sea
  • Chechaquo – [Cheechako] a newcomer; a word from the Chinook people, native to Alaska
  • conjectural – supposed
  • speculatively – thoughtfully
  • protruding – bulging out
  • temperamental – inconsistent
  • unwonted – unusual
  • jowls – cheeks
  • appendage – an attachment
  • furrow – a groove
  • monotonously – wearily, boringly, dully
  • reiterated – repeated
  • pang – a severe pain
  • “like a startled horse” – From the story's start, the differences between the man and the dog are distinct. Now, in this instant, the dog and the man show similarities. Although the man reasons based on intellect, this situation requires him to use innate, animal instinct that is a subconscious reaction.
  • skirted – moved quickly
  • compelled – urged, forced
  • smote – affected
  • imperative – essential, necessary
  • ebbed – fell back, declined
  • sheaths – coverings
  • conflagration – a fire
  • boughs – the branches of a tree
  • freighted – weighed down
  • imperceptible – impossible to imagine
  • flotsam – wreckage, debris
  • brimstone – sulfur
  • spasmodically – violently, fitfully
  • ensued – followed
  • acute – sharp
  • apathetically – indifferently, unresponsively
  • peremptorily – absolutely, definitely
  • throttle – to strangle
  • oppressive – burdensome
  • poignant – distressing
  • Mercury – a messenger for the gods in Roman mythology
  • chidden – scolded
  • bristle – to stiffen

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