Stephen Crane: A Research Guide

Stephen Crane

Introduction

This research guide is designed to help students and researchers find high-quality information concerning the American author, Stephen Crane. The resources included in this guide are informative and easy to use. I have attempted to give you a range of different types of resources, without exhausting any single category. The body of rigorously researched and practical print resources on Crane is great; however, there are far fewer sites on the Web that can offer the Crane reseacher similarly dynamic sources of information.

A Note on the Author

The writings of Stephen Crane (1871-1900) are seen as a kind of watershed in the history of American Literature. His first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets (1893), is recognized as one of the seminal works of American naturalism. Although this literary style had been established before the appearance of Maggie, Crane blazes his own trail, penning a realistic tale of life in the slums. He deviates from the theme of the individual being a helpless victim of environment and circumstance. His characters are influenced by the squalor of The Bowery, but are fully capable of making choices that, whether self-destructive or not, give them the power to determine their own fate.

Two years later, with the publication of The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Crane seemed to completely uproot himself from any established literary tradition. Although the book featured elements of realism, naturalism, impressionism and symbolism, it stood alone in its overall effect on the reader. Never had there been a "war novel" written with such penetrating focus on the psychology of battle. Its publication marked the encroachment of modernism, with its unsentimental and unromanticized portryal of a young, scared soldier of the American Civil War.

Crane was never able to write another novel with the creative force of The Red Badge of Courage, but he went on to produce some of the most powerful and well-crafted short stories in American letters. The Open Boat, The Blue Hotel, and The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky are all highly anthologized and considered to be masterworks. The impact of Crane's work is far-reaching, and can be seen in the writings of such luminary figures as Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway. In his short lifetime, Stephen Crane was able to master established literary traditions and break ground for the creation new traditions. I hope you enjoy your venture into the fascinating life and work of this tour de force of American Literature.

Subject Headings and Browsing Area

Use the following subject headings to search online catalogs, indexes and databases. Use this call number to browse the library stacks:

Subject Headings

  • Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900
  • Crane, Stephen, 1871-1900-Criticism and interpretation
  • Naturalism in literature
  • Realism in literature

Browsing Area PS1449.C85

Encyclopedias

Encyclopedias are excellent for a quick introduction to any topic. The following resources are perfect for students that are new to the study of Stephen Crane:

  • A Stephen Crane Encyclopedia by Stanley Wertheim
    Westport, Conn., Greenwood Press, 1997
    Includes bibliographical references and index
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z9824 1997 Research Collections Stacks

-This compact volume gives extensive information about all aspects of Crane's life. Entries include commentary on his works, fictional characters, family members, employers, and associates.

  • Literature Resource Center (database)
    Available through the IU Bloomington Libraries' Find Information page
    Vendor: Gale Group
    Accessed: 2/10/2006

-"Literature Resource Center provides access to biographies, bibliographies, and critical analysis of authors from all time periods in many genres." This is another great resource for an introduction to the subject. Just enter "Stephen Crane" into the search box and you will retrieve entries from "The Dictionary of Literary Biography" and "Contemporary Authors."

Biographies

If you are looking for in-depth knowledge of the fascinating life of Stephen Crane, these are two well-researched and interesting resources:

  • The Double Life of Stephen Crane by Christopher Benfey
    New York, Knopf, 1992
    Includes bibliographical references and index
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z554 1992 Research Collections Stacks

-This controversial study of Crane's life poses the theory that his life imitated his art. Throughout his life, Crane found himself in fantastical situations that mirrored the tales he had previously set down on paper.

  • Stephen Crane by John Berryman
    New York, Sloane, 1950
    Includes bibliography
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z53 Research Collections Stacks

-John Berryman was a poet as well as a Crane scholar and, in this biography, he focuses on giving the reader insight into Crane's creative process.

Bibliographies

Use these bibliographies to get familiar with the range of primary and secondary sources that are available for your research:

  • Stephen Crane - A Bibliography by Ames W. Williams
    New York, Burt Franklin, 1970
    Includes biographical chronology and illustrations
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z4 1970 Research Collections Stacks

-This is a great bibliography for finding primary sources. It includes novels, poems, short stories, published letters, newspaper articles, and historical reviews of his work.

  • Stephen Crane: an Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Scholarship by Patrick K. Dooley
    New York, G.K. Hall, 1992
    Includes biographical chronology and index
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z583 1992 Research Collections Stacks

-Use this bibliography for finding secondary sources. These sources include scholarly criticism, interpretations, and musings on virtually all aspects of Crane's writings. The entries are grouped by the area of Crane's work that is being discussed.

Criticism, Interpretation and Analysis

Scholarly journal articles are excellent sources of information for the Crane researcher, whether you are writing a research paper or you are looking for thoughtful insight about your favorite author. The following list is made up of scholarly, peer reviewed journal articles that would be a boon to your Stephen Crane essay or term paper (APA Citation Style).

The Red Badge of Courage
  • Colvert, J. B. (1999). Unreal war in the red badge of courage. War, Literature, and the Arts: An International Journal of the Humanities, , p35.
  • Cox, J. M. (1991). The red badge of courage: The purity of war. Southern Humanities Review, 25(4), p305.
  • Curran, J. E.,Jr. (1993). 'Nobody seems to know where we go': Uncertainty, history, and irony in the red badge of courage. American Literary Realism, 26(1), p1.
  • Green, M. (1995). Fleming's 'escape' in the red badge of courage: A jungian analysis. American Literary Realism, 28(1), p80.
  • Kent, T. L. (1981). Epistemological uncertainty in the red badge of courage. MFS: Modern Fiction Studies, 27(4), p621.
  • Mulcaire, T. (19910301). Progressive visions of war in the red badge of courage and the principles of scientific management. American Quarterly, 43(1), p46.
  • Nagel, J. (2006). Donald pizer, american naturalism, and stephen crane. Studies in American Naturalism, 1(1-2), p30.
  • Renza, L. A. (1998). Crane's the red badge of courage. Explicator, 56(2), p82.
  • Schneider, M. (1987). Monomyth structure in the red badge of courage. American Literary Realism, 20(1), p45.
  • Stevenson, J. A. (1988). Beyond stephen crane: Full metal jacket. Literature Film Quarterly, 16(4), p238.
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
  • Church, J. (2006). 'Excellent people': Naturalism, egotism, and the teaching of crane's maggie. ALN: The American Literary Naturalism Newsletter, 1(2), p10.
  • Dingledine, D. (2006). 'It could have been any street': Ann petry, stephen crane, and the fate of naturalism. Studies in American Fiction, 34(1), p87.
  • Dooley, P. K. (2006). Stephen crane's distilled style (and the art of fine swearing). Stephen Crane Studies, 15(1), p28.
  • Ganal, K. (1993). Stephen crane's 'maggie' and the modern soul. ELH, 60(3), p759.
  • Graff, A. F. (1982). Metaphor and metonymy: The two worlds of crane's maggie. English Studies in Canada, 8(4), p422.
  • Horwitz, H. (1998). Maggie and the sociological paradigm. American Literary History, 10(4), p606.
  • Krause, S. J. (1983). The surrealism of crane's naturalism in maggie. American Literary Realism, 16(2), p253.
  • Lawson, A. (2004). Class mimicry in stephen crane's city. American Literary History, 16(4), p596.
  • Minks, T. S. (1988). Maggie johnson: An american in a fallen eden. Recovering Literature: A Journal of Contextualist Criticism, 16, p23.
  • Novotny, G. T. (1992). Crane's maggie, A girl of the streets. Explicator, 50(4), p225.
  • Oliver, L. J. (1988). Brander matthews' re-visioning of crane's maggie. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 60(4), p654.
  • Petry, A. H. (1984). Gin lane in the bowery: Crane's maggie and william hogarth. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 56(3), p417.
  • Pizer, D. (1995). Maggie and the naturalistic aesthetic of length. American Literary Realism, 28(1), p58.
  • Salemi, J. S. (1988). Down a steep place into the sea: Suicide in stephen crane's maggie. ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews, 1(2), p58.
  • Sweeney, G. M. (1991). The syphilitic world of stephen crane's maggie. American Literary Realism, 24(1), p79.
  • Wert, J. R. (2002). At-risk student responses to crane's maggie. Stephen Crane Studies, 11(1), p7.
The Open Boat
  • Benfey, C. (1991). Shipwrecks. Pequod: A Journal of Contemporary Literature and Literary Criticism, 32, p134.
  • Billingslea, O. (1994). Why does the oiler 'drown'? perception and cosmic chill in 'the open boat'. American Literary Realism, 27(1), p23.
  • Brown, B. (1989). Interlude: The agony of play in 'the open boat'. Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, 45(3), p23.
  • Ditsky, J. (1988). The music in 'the open boat'. North Dakota Quarterly, 56(1), p119.
  • Eye, S. B. (1998). Fact, not fiction: Questioning our assumptions about crane's 'the open boat'. Studies in Short Fiction, 35(1), p65.
  • Greenfield, S. B. (1958). The unmistakable stephen crane. PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 73(5), p562.
  • Jackson, D. H. (1983). Textual questions raised by crane's 'soldier of the legion'. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 55(1), p77.
  • JuanNavarro, S. (1989). Reading reality: The tortuous path to perception in stephen crane's 'the open boat' and 'the blue hotel'. Revista Canaria De Estudios Ingleses, 19-20, p37.
  • Kent, T. L. (1981). The problem of knowledge in 'the open boat' and 'the blue hotel'. American Literary Realism, 14(2), p262.
  • McEntee, G. (1991). Deliverance as james dickey's re-vision of crane's 'open boat'. James Dickey Newsletter, 7(2), p2.
  • Metress, C. (1991). From indifference to anxiety: Knowledge and the reader in 'the open boat'. Studies in Short Fiction, 28(1), p47.
  • Monteiro, G. (1984). Text and picture in 'the open boat'. Journal of Modern Literature, 11(2), p307.
  • Rath, S. P., & Shaw, M. N. (1991). The dialogic narrative of 'the open boat'. College Literature, 18(2), p94.
  • Schirmer, G. A. (1982). Becoming interpreters: The importance of tone in crane's 'the open boat'. American Literary Realism, 15(2), p221.
  • Shaefer, M. W. (2005). 'I...do not say that I am honest': Stephen crane's failure of artistic nerve in the 'open boat'. Philological Review, 31(1), p1.
  • Warren, R. O. (1999). The cuban insurrection and northeast florida in 'stephen crane's own story' and 'the open boat'. Stephen Crane Studies, 8(1), p8.
The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky
  • Bassan, M. (1996). The 'true west' of sam shepard and stephen crane. American Literary Realism, 28(2), p11.
  • Fultz, J. R. (1983). High jinks at yellow sky: James agee and stephen crane. Literature Film Quarterly, 11(1), p46.
  • Petry, A. H. (1983). Crane's 'the bride comes to yellow sky'. Explicator, 42(1), p45.
  • Teague, D. (1993). Green grass in yellow sky: Stephen crane in southwest texas. Isle: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 1(2), p81.
  • Thalacker, L. (2004). Jack potter: Fictional sheriff and legendary cowboy. American Literary Realism, 36(2), p180.
  • Tietz, S. (2001). Teachable fiction comes to yellow sky. Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction, 2(1), p88.
  • Zanger, J. (1991). Stephen crane's 'bride' as countermyth of the west. Great Plains Quarterly, 11(3), p157.
The Blue Hotel
  • Cate, H. (1982). Seeing and not seeing in 'the blue hotel'. College Literature, 9(2), p150.
  • Church, J. (1989). The determined stranger in stephen crane's 'blue hotel'. Studies in the Humanities, 16(2), p99.
  • Collins, M. J., & Meldrum, B. H. (1985). Realism and romance in the western stories of stephen crane. Under the sun: Myth and realism in western american literature (pp. p138) Whitston.
  • Ellis, J. (1977). The game of high-five in 'the blue hotel'. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 49(3), p440.
  • Feaster, J. (1992). Violence and the ideology of capitalism: A reconsideration of crane's 'the blue hotel'. American Literary Realism, 25(1), p74.
  • JuanNavarro, S. (1989). Reading reality: The tortuous path to perception in stephen crane's 'the open boat' and 'the blue hotel'. Revista Canaria De Estudios Ingleses, 19-20, p37.
  • Kent, T. L. (1981). The problem of knowledge in 'the open boat' and 'the blue hotel'. American Literary Realism, 14(2), p262.
  • Lewis, A., Durer, C. S., Dieterich, H. R., Laskowsky, H. J., Welke, J. W., & Veal, D. L. (1982). Teaching the western stories of stephen crane. American renaissance and american west (pp. p97) Dept. of Eng., School of Amer. Studies, & Dept. of Journalism & Telecommunication, Univ. of Wyoming.
  • McFarland, R. E. (1981). The hospitality code and crane's 'the blue hotel'. Studies in Short Fiction, 18(4), p447.
  • Murphy, B. (1983). 'The blue hotel': A source in roughing it. Studies in Short Fiction, 20(1), p39.
  • Nelson, R. J. (1999). A possible source for the palace hotel in stephen crane's 'the blue hotel'. Stephen Crane Studies, 8(2), p2.
  • Peirce, J. F. (1974). Stephen crane's use of figurative language in 'the blue hotel'. South Central Bulletin, 34(4), p160.
  • Petite, J. (1989). Expressionism and stephen crane's 'the blue hotel'. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, 10(3-4), p322.
  • Proudfit, C. L. (1983). Parataxic distortion and group process in stephen crane's 'the blue hotel'. Studies in Literature (West Hartford, CT), 15(1), p47.
  • Quinn, B. T. (1992). A contrastive look at stephen crane's naturalism as depicted in 'the open boat' and 'the blue hotel'. Studies in English Language and Literature, 42, p45.
The Black Riders
  • Colvert, J. B. (1996). Fred holland day, louise imogen guiney, and the text of stephen crane's the black riders. American Literary Realism, 28(2), p18.
  • Cox, J. M. (1957). The pilgrim's progress as source for stephen crane's the black riders. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 28(4), p478.
  • Huang, J., Zhong, W., & Han, R. (2004). Stephen crane's poetry of the absurd. Re-reading america: Changes and challenges (pp. p131) Reardon.
  • Vanouse, D. (1994). The first editions of stephen crane's the black riders and other lines and war is kind. Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 29, p107.
  • Wertheim, S. (1998). The black riders revisited: An inquiry into a bibliographical study. Stephen Crane Studies, 7(2), p6.
War Is Kind
  • Blair, J. (1989). The posture of a bohemian in the poetry of stephen crane. American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, 61(2), p215.
  • Griffith, B. W. (1973). Robinson jeffers' 'the bloody sire' and stephen crane's 'war is kind'. Notes on Contemporary Literature, 3(1), p14.
  • Marcus, M. (1966). Structure and irony in stephen crane's 'war is kind'. College Language Association Journal, 9, p274.

The following resources can be used to find more scholarly analysis and critical perspectives on the writings of Stephen Crane:

  • Stephen Crane's Career: Perspectives and Evaluations by Thomas A. Gullason
    New York, New York University Press, 1972
    Includes bibliography
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z617 Research Collections Stacks

-This book brings together a large and diverse sample of critical thought on the works of Stephen Crane. It attempts to touch on every major area of scholarly interpretation and points out where research is lacking or needed.

  • A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Stephen Crane by Michael Schaefer
    New York, G.K. Hal, 1996
    Call# PS1449.C85 Z824 1996 Research Collections Stacks

-This book takes an in-depth look at fifty of Crane's most significant short stories. Each one of these stories is broken down by examining its publication history, its circumstances of composition, its sources and influences, its relationship to other Crane works, and its published criticism.

  • MLA International Bibliography (database)
    Available through the IU Bloomington Libraries' Find Information page
    Vendor: EBSCO
    Accessed: 2/19/2006

-This full-text database contains scholarly analysis and criticism from thousands of journals and other academic print resources. A search for "Crane, Stephen," brings up 1,101 results. You can narrow your results by adding "criticism," "realism," or the title of a specific work to your keyword search.

  • Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature "ABELL" (database)
    Available through the IU Bloomington Libraries' Find Information page
    Vendor: ProQuest Information & Learning
    Accessed: 2/21/2006

-ABELL works like MLA International Bibliography, but it indexes many journals that are not found in the latter. A search for "Crane, Stephen," brings up 1,450 results. This database does not offer the full text of the article, so once you find a desired citation you will need to search IUCAT to find a print version.

Internet Resources

Here are some reliable and informative web sites that offer in-depth background information on the author's life and work. Some also offer full-text online versions of many of Crane's novels, short stories, and poems:

-This web site offers full-text versions of most of Crane's major works. It also serves as a portal to quality information and resources on the Web, including links to library special collections, teaching guides, and biographies. You can even send them your questions about the author using an online form!

-This page is part of the University of Virginia's "Hypertext Projects." It offers the full-text of The Red Badge of Courage and a wealth of information on the history of the book. Click on the link to the "Editor's Preface," to get detailed information about how the book was recieved by the critics and the reading public.

-Created by Paul C. Reuben, Ph. D., this excellent resource for students and teachers offers a bibliography, short biographical sketch, and thought provoking study questions. The research presented here is properly cited and offers students a full citation for the web page in MLA format (a librarian's dream!). You can also find a treasure trove of literature resources at the Perspectives in American Literature home page.