Crane, born in 1871 in Newark, New Jersey, had a prolific and varied writing career during his short life. Although best known for The Red Badge of Courage, his classic Civil War novel, he also wrote poems, news reports, and short stories. Many of his works embodied the realist and naturalist traditions in literature, focusing on the familiar and banal experiences of everyday life.

Crane was the 14th and final child of Methodist parents, yet he was only their ninth surviving child. Two of his surviving siblings also died during his lifetime, and Crane succumbed to tuberculosis at age 28 after many years of fragile health. The frequency with which the death of loved ones impacted his life helps explain the presence of death in his works. Although nobody dies in “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”—subverting the townsfolks’ expectations—death remains a motif in the story. Indeed, the figurative Death of the Wild West is a central theme.

Crane’s idealized notions of the American West prompted his regret for its demise. Crane was a New Englander who focused his early writing efforts on detailing life in the low-income settlements of the Northeast. He juxtaposed what he viewed as the pretentiousness and dishonesty of his home in the East with the perceived authenticity and purity of the West.