The title story, in effect a short novel, is recognised as Crane's masterpiece, but the other stories in this collection are all on a high level - particularly "The Open Boat", which has an autobiographical basis in Crane's shipwreck off Florida in 1897 and his eventual safe landfall after some days of exposure in a small, overcrowded boat. In pieces such as this, Crane out-Hemingways Hemingway. Though he died at twenty-nine from consumption, after a colourful life which included service as a war correspondent in various parts of the globe, he wrote little that is not well worth reading. The most remarkable aspect of The Red Badge of Courage is that its vivid depiction of the American Civil War was not based on personal experience; Crane was not born until several years after it had ended.