Born in 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, author and poet Stephen Crane is considered to have influenced American literature, among others the writing of Ernest Hemingway. Crane grew up in a Methodist family and began writing at the age of four. As a journalist, he was sent to Cuba as a military correspondent, when the ship sank off the coast of Florida, an incident he has later depicted in his short story, “The Open Boat.” Later, he served as a military correspondent in Greece and then moved to England. Crane died in 1900 from tuberculosis, at the age of 28, at a sanatorium in Germany.