Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane [Hardcover]

Linda Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 1998

World famous at twenty-four, dead at twenty-eight, brilliant, reckless, and ultimately tragic--Stephen Crane is a dramatic study in contradictions. His most famous work, THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE, is a classic antiwar novel. Yet Crane longed for military honors of his own and pursued a career as a war correspondent that took him to battlefields in Greece and Cuba.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Stephen Crane "was an explosion of color in a gray age," writes his biographer Linda H. Davis in a well-turned phrase typical of the acuity and aplomb displayed throughout her perceptive examination of his short (1871-1900), dramatic life. Crane was only 23 when the serial newspaper publication of The Red Badge of Courage made him famous, yet he had already developed the artistic credo that blew fresh air into the stale atmosphere of Victorian American literature. "Art is not a pulpit," this son of a Methodist minister wrote in 1893, commenting on his controversial first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. Like his friend Joseph Conrad, Crane believed that fiction should tell the truth about human beings' behavior and motives; understanding, rather than judgment, was his goal. His own standards were casually bohemian, as Davis shows in her vigorous chronicle of his numerous love affairs, his gallant defense of a woman unjustly accused of soliciting that gained him the enmity of New York City Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, a nasty lawsuit with a former lover, and a common-law marriage to a woman who ran a brothel in Florida. On the literary front, the biographer sifts out Crane's finest stories and journalism from the large amount of hackwork he cranked out for money--of which he never had enough. Davis's appreciative commentary will send readers back to Crane's fiction; her perceptive evaluation of his personality inspires renewed interest in the man who wrote it. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

Early in 1895 Stephen Crane explained his "double literary life" to Willa CatherAthat he wrote not only what pleased him as serious work but also "any sort of stuff that would sell." As for fame and reputation, "I can't wait ten years. I haven't time." He had just completed, at 24, The Red Badge of Courage. At 28 he would be dead of tuberculosis. In the few years between he lived recklessly and fully, shows Davis (Onward and Upward). He covered wars in Greece and Cuba after reporting from America's prairie country, Texas and Mexico. He moved to England and lived in grand yet tawdry style in a manor house where, with a former bordello madam who called herself Mrs. Crane but wasn't, he hosted the great names in English letters. In New York City he had already riskily defended a prostitute in print, opposing police commissioner Theodore Roosevelt, with whom he would clash while reporting in wartime Cuba. By the end of a rackety life complicated by women, debt and debilitating illness, Crane had published five uneven novels, two books of poetry, numberless pieces of reportage and several notable short stories. He lived and died largely on borrowed money and optimistic expectations. Although Davis exploits little not already in print nor revises the life of Crane, she does make use of the Stanley Wertheim and Paul Sorrentino Crane Log, Crane's own correspondence and R.W. Stallman's standard Stephen Crane. Curiously, little of Crane's own writings are quoted. Illustrated.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 414 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (August 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0899199348
• ISBN-13: 978-0899199344
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,373,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Linda H. Davis is the author of three biographies: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life (Random House, 2006, now an audio book marvelously read by Don Hagen), Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), and Onward and Upward: A Biography of Katharine S. White (Harper & Row, 1987). Born in Portland, Oregon in 1953, she has spent most of her life in Massachusetts. She is married to Chuck Yanikoski and is the mother of two. She is the founding president of the SAGE Crossing Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to offering creative farm based programs, and ultimately lives, to adults with autism.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a heartfelt, thorough treatment of a fascinating life, November 2, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Reading, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane (Hardcover)

Badge of Courage by Linda H. Davis has been an excellent companion of mine in recent days. This is a terrific book that brings to life a Stephen Crane I never knew. He lived his short, dramatic life as bravely and actively as can be imagined. Davis re-creates it all in a vivid, enthralling book that reveals a deep affection for a worthy subject. She also reveals a direct, effective style that adds wonderfully to some already wonderful material. I cannot overstate how much I value this book.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an excellent chronicle, an enthralling read, October 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane (Hardcover)

I went into Badge of Courage with little knowledge of Crane other than a distant memory of my reading his works in high school. This biography brought him back to life for me and involved me from the beginning. The life was short but complex, and at times conducted in secret; Davis conveys it all with full, affectionate treatment yet effective economy and punch. I feel as if Stephen Crane has been an enthralling companion in recent days. This feeling is due not only to the drama of the life itself but also to Linda Davis' insightful, compelling presentation of it.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Biographies don't get any better than this., October 22, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Weston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Badge of Courage: The Life of Stephen Crane (Hardcover)

I admit to bias, because I was involved in the research for this book. Nevertheless, Linda Davis has achieved what any good biographer strives to do but few accomplish: she has brought her subject back to life. This is no small feat in the case of Stephen Crane, who has fundamentally eluded all previous biographers, including the poet John Berryman and the detailed but impossible-to-read Stallman. Crane led an adventure-filled life, and was a wonderful and colorful character, as well as a brilliant, pioneering writer. Linda Davis, too, is brilliant, as a biographer; and she's a fine, sometimes breathtakingly good writer. If you read only one biography this year, make it this one. (By the way, Davis was right about Crane being buried in Elizabeth, NJ; it WAS Elizabeth back then.)