Maggie: A Girl of the Streets is a story of a young girl who is born and raised in the slums of New York during the late 1800's. Born to alcoholic parents and raised in squalor, Maggie remains sweet amidst constant brawling. Her brother Jimmy begins fighting in the streets at a young age and the baby in the family ends up dying as a child. When her father dies, Jimmy steps up to become head of the house. When he brings home one of his friends, Maggie finds the young man attractive and sees in him the perfect beau. They begin to date, and he introduces Maggie to a world filled with extravagance and sex. Maggie is accused by her mother and brother of being a prostitute and she leaves home. Forced to provide for herself, she falls into prostitution. During this time, girls who participate in prostitution are told they are going to hell. Maggie cannot deal with the guilt and ends up taking her own life. In the end, her family is saddened by her death but do not take any blame for her ultimate demise.
The Red Badge of Courage was Stephen Crane's second literary release and was published in October 1895. It was very successful and portrayed the horrors and feelings of battle with great accuracy. In the story a young soldier, Henry Fleming, is confronted with a range of emotions from fear, to courage and pride. He goes out to fight but is afraid and runs away with the first skirmish. His guild gets the best of him and her returns to battle only to die in the end. The Red Badge of Courage was viewed by many as the first unromanticized account of the Civil War (Stephen Townley Crane, 2000). This literary work established Crane as a legitimate author and even helped to bring his first book to success. After the success of The Red Badge of Courage, readers were more eager to read Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. The Red Badge of Courage was the pinnacle of Crane's writing career. No other single work of his had the same success (Burton, 2010).
Stephen Crane wrote The Blue Hotel was one of Crane's finest short stories ( "Stephen Crane," 1997). The Blue Hotel introduces a character called, Swede. He is given shelter from a storm and is welcomed into a band of friendly people. He is not trusting and expects to be harmed. While playing cards with the group, he accuses one of the men of cheating. He gets mad and leaves, finding a saloon further down the road. At the saloon, Swede has an encounter with a man and ends up being killed. This story is about brotherhood as well as hostility ("Stephen Crane," 1997). Swede was not capable of trusting and the other man at the hotel did cheat at cards. The men felt they were at fault for causing Swede's death.
By the time Crane finished writing The Blue Hotel he was very sick and had a tremendous amount of debt. His willingness to give money to others contributed greatly to his worries. The Spanish American war was starting and he signed on as a war correspondent.
Due to a scandal involving a prostitute in New York, Crane traveled to Florida to be a reporter for newspaper syndicate. Crane defended a prostitute, Dora Clark, against the police and ruined his reputation. While in Florida he met Cora Taylor and began a relationship with her. She would go on to become his common-law wife.
Crane was asked to cover the war in Cuba and jumped at the chance to observe war first-hand. He boarded the ship the Commodore. It was loaded with ammunition and supplies to be taken to Cuba. The ship ended up sinking off the coast. Crane along with the ship's captain and two other crew members were in a life boat for thirty hours. The men eventually tried to bring the dinghy to shore but in the ordeal the boat over turned and the men had to swim to shore. All but one crew member made it to shore safely. Crane wrote about the experience in his short story, The Open Boat.