Maggie A Girl of the Streets: Biography
Stephen Crane was born in Newark, New Jersey on November 1, 1871 the youngest of fourteen children of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Townley Crane and Mary Helen Peck Crane. Stephen's father was a dedicated Methodist minister who wrote sermons and tracts condemning the evils of tobacco, alcohol and prostitution - vices that Stephen would embrace later in life. His mother was an equally passionate proselytizer of virtue and was a leading figure in the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
When Dr. Crane died in 1880, Stephen's mother took her youngest son to Asbury Park, NJ and at seventeen years of age he began to help his brother with his press service. He attended Syracuse University where he distinguished himself only as a baseball player. After attending a few classes he left school and moved to New York City where he tried but failed to make his way as a newspaper reporter. During this time his mother died and Stephen managed to publish some pieces entitled "Sullivan County Sketches." Stephen continued to live hand-to-mouth in the city and managed to complete Maggie: A Girl of the Streets during this time. Although publishers balked at the barren and experimental story that held none of the didacticism popular in slum stories of the day, Crane published the work himself under the pseudonym Johnston Smith in 1893. He gave away many more copies than he sold but the story attracted the attention of two literary giants - Hamlin Garland and William Dean Howells - who recognized the young author's talent and supported him.
A year later Crane's novel The Red Badge of Courage appeared as a syndicated story in 750 papers. The success of the serial ensured that Crane would have work whenever he wanted it. In the following years he was sent as a correspondent to the West where he wrote "the Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" and "The Blue Hotel". In 1895 The Red Badge of Courage was published as a novel and enjoyed immediate popularity for its realistic portrayal of warfare. The next year a sanitized version of Maggie was reprinted and many other notable works followed including The Little Regiment and George's Mother.
Crane went to Cuba as a correspondent and later formed a romantic attachment to Cora Taylor, a well-known madam and brothel keeper of the Hotel de Dream. While in the Caribbean, Crane had the experience of having a ship sunk from underneath him, an event he memorialized in his story "The Open Boat". The year 1897 found him on the front of the Greco-Turkish war from which he sent dispatches to newspapers. Afterward, Stephen and Cora moved to England for awhile where Crane associated with many of the well-known writers of the day but in 1898 he returned to the Caribbean to cover the Spanish-American war for the New York World. He and Cora returned to England in 1899 where Crane, deeply in debt and suffering from tuberculosis, completed several works and struggled to earn money. He died of the disease at a sanatorium in Germany on June 5, 1900.
Maggie A Girl of the Streets Study Guide (Choose to Continue)
- Maggie A Girl of the Streets
- Novel Summary
- Novel Summary: Chapter 1
- Novel Summary: Chapter 2
- Novel Summary: Chapter 3
- Novel Summary: Chapter 4
- Novel Summary: Chapter 5
- Novel Summary: Chapter 6
- Novel Summary: Chapter 7
- Novel Summary: Chapter 8
- Novel Summary: Chapter 9
- Novel Summary: Chapter 10
- Novel Summary: Chapter 11
- Novel Summary: Chapter 12
- Novel Summary: Chapter 13
- Novel Summary: Chapter 14
- Novel Summary: Chapter 15
- Novel Summary: Chapter 16
- Novel Summary: Chapter 17
- Novel Summary: Chapter 18
- Novel Summary: Chapter 19
- Character Profiles
- Metaphor Analysis
- Theme Analysis
- Top Ten Quotes
- Biography
- Essay Q&A
Top Novelguides
Apology A Christmas Carol A Clean Well Lighted Place A Clockwork Orange A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court A Doll's House A Farewell To Arms A Hope in the Unseen A Lost Lady A Man For All Seasons A Midsummer Night's Dream A Modest Proposal A Passage to India A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man A Raisin in the Sun A Room With a View A Separate Peace A Streetcar Named Desire A Tale of Two Cities A Thousand Splendid Suns A Tree Grows In Brooklyn A Walk to Remember A Wrinkle In Time Absalom-Absalom Across Five Aprils Adam Bede Adventures of Augie March Agamemnon Alas Babylon Alice in Wonderland All My Sons All Quiet on the Western Front All the Kings Men All the Pretty Horses All's Well That Ends Well An American Tragedy An Enemy of the People And Then There Were None Angela's Ashes Animal Farm Anna Karenina Anthem Antigone Sophocles Antigone Antony and Cleopatra April Morning Aristotles Ethics Aristotle's Poetics Arms and the Man Around the World in Eighty Days____________________________________
Top Novelguides
Quotes By Topic
Quote of the dayReports & Essays
Maggie A Girl of the Streets Study Guide (Choose to Continue)
- Maggie A Girl of the Streets
- Novel Summary
- Novel Summary: Chapter 1
- Novel Summary: Chapter 2
- Novel Summary: Chapter 3
- Novel Summary: Chapter 4
- Novel Summary: Chapter 5
- Novel Summary: Chapter 6
- Novel Summary: Chapter 7
- Novel Summary: Chapter 8
- Novel Summary: Chapter 9
- Novel Summary: Chapter 10
- Novel Summary: Chapter 11
- Novel Summary: Chapter 12
- Novel Summary: Chapter 13
- Novel Summary: Chapter 14
- Novel Summary: Chapter 15
- Novel Summary: Chapter 16
- Novel Summary: Chapter 17
- Novel Summary: Chapter 18
- Novel Summary: Chapter 19
- Character Profiles
- Metaphor Analysis
- Theme Analysis
- Top Ten Quotes
- Biography
- Essay Q&A
Maggie A Girl of the Streets Study Guide
Choose to Continue- Maggie A Girl of the Streets
- Novel Summary
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Character Profiles
- Metaphor Analysis
- Theme Analysis
- Top Ten Quotes
- Biography
- Essay Q&A
Our Networks