** WINNER OF THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY ** American writer Stephen Crane died in 1900 at the age of 28. In his short, intense life, this burning boy wrote a masterpiece, The Red Badge of Courage , as well as other novels, short stories, and dispatches from the front of two wars. His adventurous life took him to the Wild West, Mexico, then to Cuba during the Spanish American War - dodging bullets which killed those around him, and suffering shipwreck on his way home. Fleeing America because of a scandalous love affair, his last 18 months were spent in Britain where he became a close friends of H.G. Wells, Henry James and, especially, Joseph Conrad.

Auster 's intention is to restore Crane to the pantheon of Modernist 20th century authors such as Conrad. Through Auster's skill as a novelist, Crane leaps off the page, and into the reader's heart.