“The one thing that deeply pleases me in my literary life—brief and…” — Stephen Crane | V2Melody

“The one thing that deeply pleases me in my literary life—brief and inglorious as it is—is the fact that men of sense believe me to be sincere.”

Valuing the recognition of sincerity above fame or sales · Letter, circa 1895–96 (to a friend, published 1900)

About Stephen Crane

Stephen Crane

1 November 1871–5 June 1900

Stephen Crane, born 1 November 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, and dead of tuberculosis on 5 June 1900 in Badenweiler, Germany, lived only twenty-eight years, yet his work altered the direction of American fiction, journalism, and poetry. He is commonly placed among the major writers of literary naturalism, beside such…

More by Stephen Crane

Poems by Stephen Crane

More remarks by Stephen Crane

“I wonder that some of those fellows don’t tell how they felt in those scraps. They spout enough of what they did, but they’re as emotionless as rocks.”

Criticising factual war narratives for ignoring psychological experience · Remark on Civil War accounts (attested by contemporaries)

“Personally, I like my little book of poems, The Black Riders, better than I do The Red Badge of Courage. The reason is, I suppose, that the former is the more ambitious effort. In it I aim to give my ideas of life as a whole, so far as I know it, and the latter is a mere episode.”

Preferring the broader philosophical scope of his verse to the episodic novel · Letter, written in England (published 1900)

“When I was the mark for every humorist in the country I went ahead, and now, when I am the mark for only 50 per cent. of the humorists of the country, I go ahead.”

Persisting in the face of mockery and shifting public opinion · Letter, circa 1895–96 (to a friend, published 1900)