Paul Auster takes the reader on a vivid journey through the brief 29 years of Stephen Crane's life. Auster analyses the major works with such enthusiasm that the reader immediately wants to read Crane's work. Auster also brings to life the world of fin de siecle America as the 19th century ends and the 20th is beginning. This pulsating world is the background to a life lived at a fever pitch – in war zones, near-drowning on his way to the Spanish American War, as well involvement in a scandalous love affair that caused him to leave the country. Crane died in 1900, but he is not the last of the Victorians, he is the first of the Moderns.