Complete Works of Stephen Crane Read online

  The Complete Works of

  STEPHEN CRANE

  (1871-1900)

  Contents

  The Novels

  MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS

  THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE

  GEORGE’S MOTHER

  THE THIRD VIOLET

  ACTIVE SERVICE

  THE O’RUDDY

  The Short Story Collections

  THE LITTLE REGIMENT AND OTHER EPISODES FROM THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

  THE OPEN BOAT AND OTHER TALES OF ADVENTURE

  THE MONSTER AND OTHER STORIES

  WHILOMVILLE STORIES

  WOUNDS IN THE RAIN: WAR STORIES

  THE MONSTER

  The Short Stories

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER

  The Poetry Collections

  THE BLACK RIDERS AND OTHER LINES

  WAR IS KIND

  The Non-Fiction

  GREAT BATTLES OF THE WORLD

  Contextual Pieces

  LIST OF ESSAYS AND REVIEWS

  The Delphi Classics Catalogue

  © Delphi Classics 2014

  Version 1

  The Complete Works of

  STEPHEN CRANE

  By Delphi Classics, 2014

  COPYRIGHT

  Complete Works of Stephen Crane

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Delphi Classics.

  © Delphi Classics, 2014.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.

  Delphi Classics

  is an imprint of

  Delphi Publishing Ltd

  Hastings, East Sussex

  United Kingdom

  Contact: [email protected]

  www.delphiclassics.com

  Parts Edition Now Available!

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  The Novels

  14 Mulberry Place, the birthplace of Stephen Crane, Newark, New Jersey, was built c. 1860 and is known as the Anthony Beam house. Crane lived here for three years. The house no longer stands.

  Crane in 1888, aged 17, while a student at the Hudson River Institute

  Crane, 1897

  MAGGIE: A GIRL OF THE STREETS

  Maggie, a Girl of the Streets was Stephen Crane’s first published novel, self-financed in 1893 and printed under the pseudonym, Johnston Smith. Publishers initially found the book unacceptable due to its stark, sometimes graphic realism and its depiction of a young impoverished woman driven to prostitution — a subject too risqué and radical for the time period. An article about Crane, published in The Academy, in 1897, explained the situation, although misremembering Maggie’s publication date: “About six years ago there appeared in New York a small book in paper covers, entitled Maggie: a Child of the Streets, by Johnston Smith. This very modest brochure, which was sold at fifty cents, bore no publisher’s imprint, and it may well be supposed that only a few copies were issued. The reason for this is not far to seek. Maggie is not a pleasant book, and in those days the public was not ripe for the reception of instantaneous literary photographs of slum life. No firm cared or dared to associate its name with such a publication. But we have changed all that. One man stood out alone from the mass of unsympathetic reviewers. Mr. Hamlin Garland, perhaps the most genuine of American critics, read Maggie with intense interest, and loudly proclaimed the advent of an author ‘to be reckoned with.’ But the public refused to be interested, and Maggie was forgotten by all but a chosen few, who still treasure the little book in paper covers.”

  Hamlin Garland, a well-known and well-established author, became a champion of Crane’s work. His review of Maggie in the June 1893 issue of The Arena was one of the first to understand and appreciate Crane’s gifts. “His book is the most truthful and unhackneyed study of the slums I have yet read, fragment though it is,” he wrote. “It is pictorial, graphic, terrible in its directness. It has no conventional phrases. It gives the dialect of the slums as I have never before seen it written — crisp, direct, terse. It is another locality finding voice.”

  However, with the fabulous success of his second novel, The Red Badge of Courage, Crane undertook revision of Maggie and in 1896 a new edition appeared, published by D. Appleton & Co. in New York and Heinemann in London. Still shocking to sensibilities used to tamer fare, Maggie drew a varied response from critics and readers. The book became widely discussed due to its subject matter and innovative literary style. Henry Edward Rood of the Mail and Express, spoke for many readers when in 1896 he described Maggie as “one of the most powerful, terrible, and hideous studies of the dregs of humanity that have been produced in the English language.”

  Original first edition, New York, 1893. Crane used the pseudonym, Johnston Smith.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  The revised first edition, published by Appleton in 1896.

  Stephen Crane house, Asbury Park, New Jersey, where he wrote ‘Maggie, a Girl of the Streets’. Crane moved into the house in 1883.

  Stephen Crane at 22. An oil painting by Corwin Knapp Linson

  Chapter I

  A very little boy stood upon a heap of gravel for the honor of Rum Alley. He was throwing stones at howling urchins from Devil’s Row who were circling madly about the heap and pelting at him.

  His infantile countenance was livid with fury. His small body was writhing in the delivery of great, crimson oaths.

  “Run, Jimmie, run! Dey’ll get yehs,” screamed a retreating Rum Alley child.

  “Naw,” responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, “dese micks can’t make me run.”

  Howls of renewed wrath went up from Devil’s Row throats. Tattered gamins on the right made a furious assault on the gravel heap. On their small, convulsed faces there shone the grins of true assassins. As they charged, they threw stones and cursed in shrill chorus.

  The little champion of Rum Alley stumbled precipitately down the other side. His coat had been torn to shreds in a scuffle, and his hat was gone. He had bruises on twenty parts of his body, and blood was dripping from a cut in his head. His wan features wore a look of a tiny, insane demon.

  On the gr
ound, children from Devil’s Row closed in on their antagonist. He crooked his left arm defensively about his head and fought with cursing fury. The little boys ran to and fro, dodging, hurling stones and swearing in barbaric trebles.

  From a window of an apartment house that upreared its form from amid squat, ignorant stables, there leaned a curious woman. Some laborers, unloading a scow at a dock at the river, paused for a moment and regarded the fight. The engineer of a passive tugboat hung lazily to a railing and watched. Over on the Island, a worm of yellow convicts came from the shadow of a building and crawled slowly along the river’s bank.

  A stone had smashed into Jimmie’s mouth. Blood was bubbling over his chin and down upon his ragged shirt. Tears made furrows on his dirt-stained cheeks. His thin legs had begun to tremble and turn weak, causing his small body to reel. His roaring curses of the first part of the fight had changed to a blasphemous chatter.

  In the yells of the whirling mob of Devil’s Row children there were notes of joy like songs of triumphant savagery. The little boys seemed to leer gloatingly at the blood upon the other child’s face.

  Down the avenue came boastfully sauntering a lad of sixteen years, although the chronic sneer of an ideal manhood already sat upon his lips. His hat was tipped with an air of challenge over his eye. Between his teeth, a cigar stump was tilted at the angle of defiance. He walked with a certain swing of the shoulders which appalled the timid. He glanced over into the vacant lot in which the little raving boys from Devil’s Row seethed about the shrieking and tearful child from Rum Alley.

  “Gee!” he murmured with interest. “A scrap. Gee!”

  He strode over to the cursing circle, swinging his shoulders in a manner which denoted that he held victory in his fists. He approached at the back of one of the most deeply engaged of the Devil’s Row children.

  “Ah, what deh hell,” he said, and smote the deeply-engaged one on the back of the head. The little boy fell to the ground and gave a hoarse, tremendous howl. He scrambled to his feet, and perceiving, evidently, the size of his assailant, ran quickly off, shouting alarms. The entire Devil’s Row party followed him. They came to a stand a short distance away and yelled taunting oaths at the boy with the chronic sneer. The latter, momentarily, paid no attention to them.

  “What deh hell, Jimmie?” he asked of the small champion.

  Jimmie wiped his blood-wet features with his sleeve.

  “Well, it was dis way, Pete, see! I was goin’ teh lick dat Riley kid and dey all pitched on me.”

  Some Rum Alley children now came forward. The party stood for a moment exchanging vainglorious remarks with Devil’s Row. A few stones were thrown at long distances, and words of challenge passed between small warriors. Then the Rum Alley contingent turned slowly in the direction of their home street. They began to give, each to each, distorted versions of the fight. Causes of retreat in particular cases were magnified. Blows dealt in the fight were enlarged to catapultian power, and stones thrown were alleged to have hurtled with infinite accuracy. Valor grew strong again, and the little boys began to swear with great spirit.

  “Ah, we blokies kin lick deh hull damn Row,” said a child, swaggering.

  Little Jimmie was striving to stanch the flow of blood from his cut lips. Scowling, he turned upon the speaker.

  “Ah, where deh hell was yeh when I was doin’ all deh fightin?” he demanded. “Youse kids makes me tired.”

  “Ah, go ahn,” replied the other argumentatively.

  Jimmie replied with heavy contempt. “Ah, youse can’t fight, Blue Billie! I kin lick yeh wid one han’.”

  “Ah, go ahn,” replied Billie again.

  “Ah,” said Jimmie threateningly.

  “Ah,” said the other in the same tone.

  They struck at each other, clinched, and rolled over on the cobble stones.

  “Smash ‘im, Jimmie, kick deh damn guts out of ‘im,” yelled Pete, the lad with the chronic sneer, in tones of delight.

  The small combatants pounded and kicked, scratched and tore. They began to weep and their curses struggled in their throats with sobs. The other little boys clasped their hands and wriggled their legs in excitement. They formed a bobbing circle about the pair.

  A tiny spectator was suddenly agitated.

  “Cheese it, Jimmie, cheese it! Here comes yer fader,” he yelled.

  The circle of little boys instantly parted. They drew away and waited in ecstatic awe for that which was about to happen. The two little boys fighting in the modes of four thousand years ago, did not hear the warning.

  Up the avenue there plodded slowly a man with sullen eyes. He was carrying a dinner pail and smoking an apple-wood pipe.

  As he neared the spot where the little boys strove, he regarded them listlessly. But suddenly he roared an oath and advanced upon the rolling fighters.

  “Here, you Jim, git up, now, while I belt yer life out, you damned disorderly brat.”

  He began to kick into the chaotic mass on the ground. The boy Billie felt a heavy boot strike his head. He made a furious effort and disentangled himself from Jimmie. He tottered away, damning.

  Jimmie arose painfully from the ground and confronting his father, began to curse him. His parent kicked him. “Come home, now,” he cried, “an’ stop yer jawin’, er I’ll lam the everlasting head off yehs.”

  They departed. The man paced placidly along with the apple-wood emblem of serenity between his teeth. The boy followed a dozen feet in the rear. He swore luridly, for he felt that it was degradation for one who aimed to be some vague soldier, or a man of blood with a sort of sublime license, to be taken home by a father.

  Chapter II

  Eventually they entered into a dark region where, from a careening building, a dozen gruesome doorways gave up loads of babies to the street and the gutter. A wind of early autumn raised yellow dust from cobbles and swirled it against an hundred windows. Long streamers of garments fluttered from fire-escapes. In all unhandy places there were buckets, brooms, rags and bottles. In the street infants played or fought with other infants or sat stupidly in the way of vehicles. Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels. Withered persons, in curious postures of submission to something, sat smoking pipes in obscure corners. A thousand odors of cooking food came forth to the street. The building quivered and creaked from the weight of humanity stamping about in its bowels.

  A small ragged girl dragged a red, bawling infant along the crowded ways. He was hanging back, baby-like, bracing his wrinkled, bare legs.

  The little girl cried out: “Ah, Tommie, come ahn. Dere’s Jimmie and fader. Don’t be a-pullin’ me back.”

  She jerked the baby’s arm impatiently. He fell on his face, roaring. With a second jerk she pulled him to his feet, and they went on. With the obstinacy of his order, he protested against being dragged in a chosen direction. He made heroic endeavors to keep on his legs, denounce his sister and consume a bit of orange peeling which he chewed between the times of his infantile orations.

  As the sullen-eyed man, followed by the blood-covered boy, drew near, the little girl burst into reproachful cries. “Ah, Jimmie, youse bin fightin’ agin.”

  The urchin swelled disdainfully.

  “Ah, what deh hell, Mag. See?”

  The little girl upbraided him, “Youse allus fightin’, Jimmie, an’ yeh knows it puts mudder out when yehs come home half dead, an’ it’s like we’ll all get a poundin’.”

  She began to weep. The babe threw back his head and roared at his prospects.

  “Ah, what deh hell!” cried Jimmie. “Shut up er I’ll smack yer mout’. See?”

  As his sister continued her lamentations, he suddenly swore and struck her. The little girl reeled and, recovering herself, burst into tears and quaveringly cursed him. As she slowly retreated her brother advanced dealing her cuffs. The father heard and turned about.

  “Stop that, Jim, d’yeh hear? Leave yer sister alon
e on the street. It’s like I can never beat any sense into yer damned wooden head.”

  The urchin raised his voice in defiance to his parent and continued his attacks. The babe bawled tremendously, protesting with great violence. During his sister’s hasty manoeuvres, he was dragged by the arm.

  Finally the procession plunged into one of the gruesome doorways. They crawled up dark stairways and along cold, gloomy halls. At last the father pushed open a door and they entered a lighted room in which a large woman was rampant.

  She stopped in a career from a seething stove to a pan-covered table. As the father and children filed in she peered at them.

  “Eh, what? Been fightin’ agin, by Gawd!” She threw herself upon Jimmie. The urchin tried to dart behind the others and in the scuffle the babe, Tommie, was knocked down. He protested with his usual vehemence, because they had bruised his tender shins against a table leg.

  The mother’s massive shoulders heaved with anger. Grasping the urchin by the neck and shoulder she shook him until he rattled. She dragged him to an unholy sink, and, soaking a rag in water, began to scrub his lacerated face with it. Jimmie screamed in pain and tried to twist his shoulders out of the clasp of the huge arms.

  The babe sat on the floor watching the scene, his face in contortions like that of a woman at a tragedy. The father, with a newly-ladened pipe in his mouth, crouched on a backless chair near the stove. Jimmie’s cries annoyed him. He turned about and bellowed at his wife:

  “Let the damned kid alone for a minute, will yeh, Mary? Yer allus poundin’ ‘im. When I come nights I can’t git no rest ‘cause yer allus poundin’ a kid. Let up, d’yeh hear? Don’t be allus poundin’ a kid.”