Still best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (1871-1900) transformed American literature through his original short stories, novellas, poems, and journalism, before dying of tuberculosis at age 28. Paying tribute to an author he clearly admires, Paul Auster recounts how Crane disrupted the course of the 1892 presidential campaign, ruined his reputation through a feud with the NYPD over the false arrest of a prostitute, barely survived a shipwreck, and found lasting love with the proprietress of Jacksonville's most elegant bawdyhouse—while restlessly penning works that changed American literature.