Great job on this article; it's great to see another 19th century American literary figure getting some attention. I made a few edits myself; feel free to disagree on my changes. I hope you don't mind if I further nit-pick a tad...
Under "Early years", the sentence about Crane's first surviving poem seems a bit awkward, particularly how it is about "wanting a dog". I wonder if I could suggest arranging as: In December 1879, Crane wrote a poem about wanting a dog for Christmas. The poem, entitled "I'd Rather Have -" is his first surviving poem. I might be overthinking this one so feel free to ignore. Later on in the same subsection, the phrase "Townley was a newspaperman" may be ambiguous to people: is he an editor? a newspaper owner? See if you can clarify.
In the "Post-education" subsection, who is Willis Fletcher Johnson? Would the word "editor" before his name help?
Under "Life in New York", it might be worth throwing in a footnote to support that Crane though The Red Badge of Courage would make him famous.
Under "Cora Crane..." subsection, why use "seven hundred dollars"? Elsewhere, I see $300 and other dollar amounts following the same format. Also, there's a term "as the water gained..." Is gained a typical expression? I'm oblivious to it. Further down in that section, "Crane emerged from the ordeal with his reputation enhanced, if not restored, after the battering he received from the press during the Dora Clark affair." I'd suggest a footnote (or even two) as the concept of his reputation being enhanced is a likely candidate to challenge.
"English and Spanish-American War" has a great quote from his friendship with Conrad. Who should we assume made that quote?
A couple notes overall relating to the MoS (which you might be able to confirm for me). I'm not sure if there is a specific policy advocating a single space after a full stop, but I've seen it more often on Wiki than the two spaces method used in this article. Also, I seem to remember a policy on dates saying that there should always be a comma after the year in full dates (i.e. On July 28, 2008, something happened). I wonder if the policy on autoformatting dates (i.e. July 28; some of the dates in the "Death" section follow this format) is the same as I remember it. Not sure if it's significant until the FAC stage, at which point I'm sure it would be descended upon by the hungry wolves who know better than I do. I'd also suggest being a bit more generous with internal links; I added a few myself.
Really, though, great job. I'm putting this on hold, presuming it will take no time at all for you to respond to my notes above. Overall, this is a well-written, well-sourced article – and I definitely learned a thing or two reading it. I'm sure you intend to prepare it for FA review soon! --Midnightdreary (talk) 22:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)