The Open Boat and Other Stories

The stories are moving and powerfully written. A definitely different style than the time was known for. I got the kindle version along with the paperback. MUCH easier to read as the kindle is formatted with digital fonts but the paperback seems to be printed as if each page was a jpeg so the type is a bit difficult to read. They could reprint it but the interest probably won't cover the cost. Worth a read!

Four men in a dinghy adrift on a sea for 30 hours. The tempest of waves and a great shark occasionally circling around the perimeter of the boat. And the men rowing endlessly as if it was their only tangible way of protesting against their fates. It all happened in reality because the author Stephen Crane himself experienced the ordeal as one of the four men from the sunk SS Commodore off the coast of Florida en route to Cuba, where Crane had been sent as a war correspondent. The story of the Open Boat is as realistic as it can be based upon a factual event the author himself was fatefully partaken in.The four survivors of the vessel were aggregates in a dinghy bound by a remote hope of finding a rescue crew in the middle of the ocean that moved them with terrible grace of waves. The men were a captain, a cook, an oiler, and a correspondent, who was the author himself. There was a subtle brotherhood of men built in the boat who took care of each other. Crane surmised that the captain's heartfelt devotion to the safety of the motley crew resulted in comradeship, which the author himself had always regarded as a hypocritical concept of men until then.There were indeed moments of despair as their drifting became protracted, and the author saw this as nature not regarding human as important. He would jeer at any signs of nature in any deity form because thinking of the captain and the two other seamen who had worked so hard on the sea in such distress was the abominable injustice.Stephen Crane was a great American realist writer who later influenced Ernest Hemingway. Born in 1871 as a ninth child of Protestant Methodist parents in Newark, NJ, his literary talent began when he wrote his first poem at the age of eight. Although brilliant, Crane was not academically inclined, so he left University of Syracuse and became a kind of itinerant writer. It is said that Crane was a naturalist writer who emphasized observation in the portrayal of reality based on scientific principles of objectivity and detachment applied to the story of human characteristics. However, in my opinion, he was more of a realist writer who focused on objective, truthful presentations of details of the ordinary lives influenced by Gustave Flaubert and George Eliot. In this story, Crane's use of vocabulary was pity and straightforward with elegant expressions of emotions and feelings that so appropriately described the situations in which the characters were trapped.After Crane's untimely death at the age of twenty-eight in a Black Forest sanitorium in Germany, Crane's works began to gain their long overdue acclaim, one of which was this story of the sunk vessel and his own experience thereof. Stephen Crane's works should deserve wider readership because he's the first and foremost American writer in Realism literary movement who paid attention to the lives of the ordinary by being the experience of living among the ordinary and writing the existential presentations of the ordinary lives.

A Classic Set of Short Stories by a Classic Author; " The Open Boat " is one of the best short stories you will ever read; and I picked up this set for a outright steal at Amazon; Try the Sample if you must, but you won't be sorry for your purchase; Three Great Reads

Like many baby boomers, I read "The Red Badge of Courage" in High School. I was an avid reader (still am) and thought it was interesting and well written. I wasn't aware, and never had the interest, to see if Stephen Crane had written other works. My interest in reading "The Open Boat" was piqued when I read on the web that it was one of the books that Ernest Hemingway recommended for aspiring writers. A few Russian works were on the list as well. After reading "The Open Boat" and having previously read Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, I can see the basis of Hemingway's recommendations, and how these works influenced his unique, to English readers, writing style. The novella is written in third person (as are many - but not all - of Hemingway's works). And, the writer does little, or often nothing, to tell the reader what the character(s) are thinking. He lets their dialogue and interactions with other characters and the environment in which they are set let the reader draw their conclusions. Is the character honest? dishonest, brave? a coward? Crane never overtly describes emotions - he let's the dialogue and the scene do that. Hence, like the aforementioned Russian writers, Crane's stories are not "easy" reads. It takes some work. But it is interesting and he is widely viewed as one of America's early great writers. In short, the story involves a group of sailors whose ship has foundered and they are in an "Open Boat" within sight of the shore, but due to heavy seas and currents and having to constantly bail water, they make little progress in reaching the shore. I won't spoil the ending, but the core of the novel is the range of characters and their dialogue. Definitely worth a read.

This book was ordered as part of a bundle of textbooks needed for the Spring 2013 semester. The books arrived within two days due to my Amazon Prime subscription, and were in brand new condition. I am very satisfied with my order and all of the products will be very useful in my classes this semester. I will continue to buy books from Amazon in the future!

One star off for typos.

Especially important is MAGGIE: A GIRL of THE STREETS. This is a short classic, but it is just as relevant today as when it was written. As you read it, consider the enslavement and sex trafficking of today.

I love Stephen Crane and I love my Kindle, however... the digital copy of this book is riddled with typos, missing paragraphs, and even missing pages. I recommend reading the story, or perhaps even buying the phsyical book. But stay away from this digital copy.

Very nice little book - excellent size for everyday commuting. Steven Crate is rightfully considered one of the best American writers.