Stephen Crane 1871-1900

1. Stephen Crane 1871-1900 NATURALIST • The eighth surviving child, Crane began writing at the age of 4 and had published several articles by the age of 16. • Stylistically, Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects, and irony. • Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises, and social isolation. • He won international acclaim for his 1895 Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote without any battle experience. • Plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, Crane died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium at the age of 28.

2. Ambrose Bierce 1842-1919 • The sardonic view of human nature that informed his work – along with his vehemence as a critic, with his motto "nothing matters" – earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce.“ • Bierce’s style often embraces abrupt beginnings, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, the theme of war. • In 1913, Bierce traveled to Mexico to gain a firsthand perspective on that country's ongoing revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, the elderly writer disappeared without a trace.

3. Jack London 1878-1916 Naturalist • Mother, Flora Welman, became pregnant with Jack, by husband William Chaney. Chaney demanded she have an abortion and she refused, and Chaney disclaimed the child. • In desperation, she shot herself, in attempt to commit suicide, but the attempt was unsuccessful and she lived the remainder of her life deranged. • Jack was given to a former slave, Virginia Prentess, who served as the maternal figure throughout Jack’s life. • Flora married John London late in 1876 and Jack went to live with the two in San Francisco.

4. Jack attended University of California until 21 when he dropped out and headed towards the Klondike. Like so many others malnourished in the Klondike Gold Rush, he developed scurvy. His gums became swollen, eventually leading to the loss of his four front teeth. A constant gnawing pain affected his hip and leg muscles, and his face was stricken with marks that would forever remind him of the struggles he faced in the Klondike. • He is best remembered as the author of Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short story “To Build a Fire”. • Jack London’s death continues to be a mystery. There is a great deal of controversy over whether it was uremia or suicide by morphine overdose.

5. Charlotte Perkins Gilman 1860-1935 • Perkin’s did not experience a stable childhood for her father abandoned his wife and children, leaving them in an impoverished state. Mary Perkins, Charlotte’s mother, often sought financial assistance from her sister-in-law’s: Isabella Beecher Hooker, a suffragist, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. • Gilman married and and soon after, gave birth to her first child and suffered from a near nervous breakdown. This experience led her to move to California leaving her daughter in the care of her soon-to-be ex-husband. In California, Gilman who was battling poverty, turned to writing as a way of earning money.

6. Charlotte Perkins Gilman • Gilman was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations. • Feminist literature • addresses differences in gender and sex while seeking to question and transform androcentric systems of thought which conceives the male as the norm. • Addresses the believe that existing inequalities between dominant and marginalized groups can and should be removed. • Gilman, became well known for her lectures on women's topics. She emerged as a spokesperson on such topics as women's perspectives on work and family. She believed that men and women should share the responsibility of housework, and that women should be encouraged from a very early age, to be independent and to work for themselves. • Gilman’s best remembered work today is her semi- autobiographical short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which she wrote after her severe bout of postpartum psychosis. • Gilman died on August 17, 1935, in Pasadena, California at 75 years old. After learning that she suffered from inoperable cancer, Gilman took her own life. She wrote in a final note that "when one is assured of unavoidable and imminent death, it is the simplest of human rights to choose a quick and easy death in place of a slow and horrible one.”