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wasoxygen  ·  3041 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: If Any One of You Knows Someone Who Knows Stephen King - _refugee_ blog

I read Crane for the first time this year, after flagamuffin suggested The Open Boat as a good adventure/survival story. My cheap Kindle copy included Maggie: A Girl of the Streets which was amazing, as well as the excellent short stories "The Blue Hotel" and "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky." After these I was compelled to read The Red Badge of Courage, which I somehow escaped during high school. It was very good, but my expectations were inflated after reading the shorter works and knowing that this was his most famous book. It also included some observations from Joseph Conrad, including a horrible comment about Crane's early death of tuberculosis: "It was a great loss to his friends, but perhaps not so much to literature."

His companion, Cora Crane, is a fascinating character.

Another version of "The Open Boat and Other Stories" includes several more short works; I've just sent it my Kindle.