Frequently Asked Questions

Questions about Crane Writing about Crane
Crane died very young, before his 29th birthday.  What caused his death?  I want to quote something from your site. What should I put on my Works Cited page?
Did Stephen Crane write The Red Badge of Courage based on his experiences in the Civil War? I have to write a paper on "The Open Boat" and naturalism (or "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" and color imagery, or another topic). Can you help me?
Did Crane write a poem with these lines? (or) Did Crane ever write a story called "---"? Where can I find Crane criticism online?
I don't live near a library, and I'm not a student so I can't get access to the articles this way.  Isn't there anything else available? 

 
Crane died very young, before his 29th birthday.  What caused his death? 
Crane died of tuberculosis, a common cause of death before antibiotics and other drugs were discovered to treat the disease. He had had the disease for a long time. According to The Crane Log, he suffered a lung hemorrhage on 29 December 1899 but kept writing to pay the bills throughout the spring of 1900.  He had  more hemorrhages on March 31st, and by April 14, the Academy, a journal, noted that Crane was "lying seriously ill at the mediaeval house in Sussex, Brede Place, where he has been living for the past two years." At the end of May, 1900, Cora Crane takes Stephen to Badenweiler, Baden, for treatment, in a last-ditch effort to save his life. Crane continues to dictate portions of his last novel, The O'Ruddy, but dies on June 5, 1900. 
Did Crane base The Red Badge of Courage on his experiences in the Civil War?
No, Crane was born in 1871, six years after the war ended. For more details, see the Queries 2004 page.
I have to write a paper on "The Open Boat" and naturalism (or "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" and color imagery, or another topic). Can you help me?
You can find some help in the Student Queries section of this site.  The questions and references there should help you with your paper.  Also, you can search the bibliographies for secondary sources that would be relevant to your topic. Some individual bibliographies, such as the one on "The Blue Hotel," are also available. Your professor or teacher will be the best source of help for specific questions about your paper. Sorry--we are not able to respond individually.  Unique or specific queries are posted to the Student Queries page, where members of the Crane Society may respond to them. 
Where can I find Crane criticism online?
The best criticism on Crane is published in books and peer-reviewed journals rather than online. Many peer-reviewed journals are available online, however, through services such as ProQuest or Project Muse.  If you're a college or university student, or if you live near a college or university, the university library will be your best source for criticism on Crane.  Most libraries will have several of the journals and books listed in the Crane Bibliographies.

Many libraries will have access to FirstSearch, which includes the MLA Bibliography, and they will also have one or more of the following full-text databases. You can go to your local university library's home page and see which of these resources are available to you. However, these resources  may be available only on-campus or to registered students and faculty.  Many high schools and public libraries also have access to databases (such as the Gale databases) that have literary criticism.

Project Muse (Journals from Johns Hopkins University Press)(muse.jhu.edu)
Ebsco
Expanded Academic Index
Ingenta/UnCover (charges a fee of $12 and up for each article delivered)
UMI ProQuest Direct
JStor (www.jstor.org): JStor has back issues of such journals as American Literature.

Wilson Omni Full-Text Mega
NetLibrary includes the publicly accessible text collection of Crane's works from the University of Virginia, but that is already available for free from the links on the Works page.  If your library subscribes, you might find secondary sources at NetLibrary; if it doesn't, you don't need NetLibrary to get Crane's works online.

You can find articles and books on your topic by searching the bibliographies at the Crane Society site or by using the MLA Bibliography. You will also find some short bibliographies on individual stories in the Queries and Student Queries pages, and you can search this site for other references.

I don't live near a library, and I'm not a student so I can't get access to the articles this way.  Isn't there anything else available?  (top)

Since Northernlight no longer has articles online, FindArticles is a good bet; it offers some of the same full-text articles but does not charge for them.

Amazon.com has also started offering articles from scholarly journals, at about $5.95 apiece.

If you anticipate being away from a library for a longer period of time and can afford it, you might try Questia.com. Questia.com has scholarly books and some articles available. The site offers a free 30-day trial subscription and after that costs about $20 per month.

Did Crane write a poem with these lines? (or) Did Crane ever write a story called "---"?
If you want to find a particular poem, story, or phrase, try the Search feature first, for it may give you an immediate answer. The Search feature searches the works and titles available at the Crane Society site. If you don't find what you're looking for, please use the Queries or Student Queries form so that your question can be posted to the site.
How do I cite a page at the Stephen Crane Society site?

This depends on the style your instructor prefers (MLA, Chicago, Turabian), but Diana Hacker's site and a site from the Duke University libraries provide some good examples. Hacker's site also includes examples of in-text citation.

The MLA site also has good examples at http://www.mla.org/publications/style/style_faq/style_faq4.

Please note that although your Works Cited page should use hanging indents (i.e., indent the second line five spaces more than the first line), this can't be done easily on a web page. Also, the web address URL may be on a separate line since the space here is limited, but it should not be (or does not have to be) on a separate line in your document. Adjust your formatting accordingly.

None of the examples at MLA or the other sites listed exactly addresses the materials at this site, so here are some possibilities.

1. For quoting from replies on the Queries and Student Queries pages.

This is adapted from the Web Forum Posting example at the Hacker site.

Author Lastname, Author Firstname. "Reply to Question." Online posting. Date of reply. The Stephen Crane Society. Date you accessed the page. <http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/crane/squeries02.htm [or whatever the web address is]>.

Example:

Wertheim, Stanley. "Reply to 'Meaning of Wind-Demon.'" Online posting. 12 Feb. 2005. The Stephen Crane Society. 12 November 2005. <http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/crane/squeries05.htm>

2. For quoting information provided on a specific page. (Note: Sources of information are given on individual pages. If the information is from The Crane Log or another source, you should look up the original source.)

This is adapted from the personal site example on the MLA site, although it can't fit the model exactly.

Author lastname, author firstname. "Page title." Date of the page [this is found at the bottom of every page; MLA form requires only the date of the most recent update]. The Stephen Crane Society. Date you accessed the page. <http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/crane/reviews.htm>.

Campbell, Donna. "Reviews of Crane's Works and Other Secondary Sources." 30 May 2005. The Stephen Crane Society. 20 November 2005. <http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/crane/reviews.htm>

Depending on your instructor's preferences, you might also cite this page as part of a scholarly project. Again, the example below follows the MLA example, this time for a scholarly project. Using the information above, your Works Cited entry would look like this:

"Reviews of Crane's Works and Other Secondary Sources." The Stephen Crane Society. Ed. Donna Campbell. 30 May 2005. Washington State University. 20 November 2005. <http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/crane/reviews.htm>
 
 

 

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