Stephen Crane: A Biography

xvi, 664 pp. Reviewing Mr. Stallman's ''Stephen Crane: A Biography'' in The New York Times Book Review in 1968, Carlos Baker described Mr. Stallman as ''the world's foremost authority on what Crane wrote, thought and did.'' Mr. Stallman's major book about Crane, who was born in New Jersey in 1871 and died in the Bavarian Alps 29 years later, was ''Stephen Crane: An Omnibus'' (1952), which included selections from Crane's newspaper reporting and fiction, as well as a reprinting for the first time in America of ''The Red Badge of Courage,'' from the original manuscript. Mr. Stallman co-edited a volume of Crane letters (1960), ''The War Dispatches of Stephen Crane'' (1964) and a volume of articles Crane wrote for New York newspapers in the 1890's. Mr. Stallman's books include ''The Critic's Notebook'' and ''Critiques and Essays in Criticism, 1920-48,'' collections of British and American criticism, and ''The House That James Built,'' literary essays.